


Sun Eclipsing the Moon

by poramarte



Series: Solar Wind [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alpha Mark Lee (NCT), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, Angst, Arranged Marriage, Domestic Violence, Eventual Smut, Firebender Mark Lee, Implied Mpreg, Inappropriate Use of Bending (Avatar), Inspired by Avatar: The Last Airbender, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Minor Character Death, Miscarriage, Mpreg, Not Beta Read, Omega Lee Donghyuck | Haechan, Power Imbalance, Water Tribe Lee Donghyuck | Haechan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:22:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 60,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23195470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poramarte/pseuds/poramarte
Summary: His life had been planned out for him, he was supposed to marry the Crown Prince of the Earth Kingdom, he was supposed to have at least one alpha pup, preferably a male and an omega pup, preferably a female. He was supposed to live his "happily ever after" in the Earth Kingdom.Everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Series: Solar Wind [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017609
Comments: 300
Kudos: 932





	1. Prologue: A Winter Night's Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is kind of like an avatar, a/b/o kind of thing. I don’t know if it's been done, but I said why not. I did take some creative liberties so don’t expect this to be too spot on to the world of the original. The events of the hundred year war hadn’t happened in this fic, so the air nomads weren’t wiped out, the southern water tribe is still small although not at the scale of ATLA, I’m going to basically ignore all the events of the LOK and the avatar isn't really a thing. Some basic knowledge of ATLA may be required but I don't think it'll be too confusing if you don't know too much.
> 
> Just a clarification Earth, Water and Fire Prince(ss) all mean they are the Crown Prince(ss) and I will use them interchangeably.
> 
> Edit 1/8/21: This chapter has been edited, nothing has changed plot wise although some scenes are more heavily edited than others.

Donghyuck had been told that the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom had been at war since he was two. 

In his opinion, the war started for a stupid reason. Earth King Heechul’s bear had died a sudden death after Fire Lord Leeteuk arrived in the Upper Ring of Ba Sing Se for a peace negotiation. After the veterinarian had determined the bear's cause of death to be unclear, King Heechul accused Fire Lord Leeteuk of conspiring against his bear.

It isn’t clear what happened, or how it started but it was said there was an altercation between the two and the moment the Dai Li had gotten involved things escalated quickly. The Fire Lords soldiers opened fire and the battle of Ba Sing Se ended with Earth Prince Minho dead. The Earth Kingdom declared war on the Fire Nation in a matter of days and the war began. The Air Nation chose to remain neutral,but the Earth Kingdom seeked an alliance in the Water Tribe. 

The Southern Water Tribe was small and didn’t recognize the rule of it’s sister tribe therefore an alliance with the Southern Water Tribe would mean nothing, at least not for the outcome of the war. But the Northern Water Tribe was strong, maybe even stronger than both the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation, with impenetrable walls and a terrain so hostile that nobody would dare attack them. The Earth Kingdom hoped that an alliance with the Northern Water Tribe would force the Fire Nation to surrender.

The Earth King traveled to the Northern Water Tribe to meet Chief Yunho and an alliance was forged under the moonlight of the winter solstice. On that night, Tribal Prince Donghyuck and Earth Prince Yukhei were submerged in the Spirit Oasis to receive the blessing of the Moon and Ocean Spirits. The two nations believed the glowing water and Prince Donghyuck’s black hair turning white to be a sign of a blessing from the Spirits and a sign of approval of the engagement between Crown Prince Yukhei and Prince Donghyuck.

Donghyuck would never be the Chief of the Northern Water Tribe, he had three older alpha brothers in line before the rule would even be passed on to him and even then the Water Tribe would be ruled by his spouse and not him. An omega couldn’t rule any of the four nations and therefore marrying him off wouldn’t upset the order of the Water Tribe, nor threaten the Earth Kingdom.

The alliance was a smart move on the Earth Kingdoms part and one of haste on the Water Tribes, but the alliance wouldn’t be solidified until Crown Prince Yukhei and Prince Donghyuck marriage was consummated and the Water Tribe didn’t get involved in the war and the Fire Nation didn’t surrender. 

Donghyuck had been prophesied to be the one to end the war, he would bring peace to the four nations. His father believed the engagement would bring about peace, but Donghyuck didn’t see how forming an alliance with the Earth Kingdom would do that, but he was never allowed to have an opinion, not one that he should voice.

\---

He wasn’t in love with Prince Yukhei. The Earth Prince was handsome and nice, but he didn’t understand the Water Tribes customs. 

Prince Yukhei would challenge him to a friendly fight every time he visited the Northern Water Tribe and Donghyuck had run out of ways to politely say no. It was never explicitly stated that omegas couldn’t learn to bend, therefore he couldn’t blame Yukhei for not knowing that Donghyuck wouldn’t be able to fight him. Nonetheless, he would have thought Yukhei would have noticed by now that all of the Water Tribes Warriors were alphas, all of the benders in general around the city were also alphas and betas were only allowed to be healers. He supposed one didn’t care to notice if the _tradition_ didn’t affect them, Yukhei was an alpha after all, a Crown Prince, he doubted anybody had denied him anything in life. Yukhei wasn’t preceptive to say the least and he hoped Yukhei had good advisors because he couldn’t imagine Yukhei running a kingdom by himself. 

While Yukhei didn’t understand their customs, Yukhei did at least try to. Yukhei had given him a betrothed necklace when he was fourteen years old, he suspected that someone else had carved it for Yukhei. The design was too intricate to be carved by the hands of a clumsy fifteen year old. Despite his doubt, what was clear was that Yukhei didn’t understand the importance of the necklace, it was evident when Yukhei asked why they didn't have a professional carve it to look as beautiful as possible, if the necklace was to be displayed proudly for the rest of their life.

He couldn’t imagine Yukhei sitting in the Earth Kingdom’s Royal Palace practicing his carving skills just to make one necklace that Yukhei believed to be more of an accessory than a symbol.

Although Yukhei gave it to him in his fourteenth year, he didn’t begin to regularly wear it until his sixteenth. It was traditional to get engaged at sixteen and although he had been engaged since he was a child and his hair color was a reminder of such, he felt weird wearing an engagement necklace when all of his friends weren’t even worried about the future yet. 

He did however wear the necklace when Yukhei visited so that the Earth Prince and more importantly the Earth Kingdom wouldn’t feel slighted. Donghyuck doubted that Yukhei would even perceive it as that, but they had to keep up appearances.

Prince Yukhei was every omegas wet dream as his personal assistant, Renjun would say, Yukhei just wasn’t his. He didn’t doubt their union would be a powerful one, the spirits had said so, but he didn’t know if it would be a happy one. Renjun said Yukhei only had eyes for him and it might have been true, but an engagement under the watchful eye of both the Water Tribe and the Earth Kingdom, didn’t feel real, it didn’t matter if Yukhei had heart eyes every time he came to visit him. They had never had a choice and love out of an arrangement, wasn't real. 

\---

News of the end of the war came on the Winter Solstice of his eighteenth year. 

His eighteenth Winter Solstice was an important one, one that he had always known how he would celebrate. Every year on the Winter Solstice, a festival was held to celebrate the Moon and the Ocean spirit and after the union of the two nations was forged on the night of a Winter Solstice, the unity was also celebrated at the festival. The Earth King and his children regularly attended the celebration to show the strength of their unity and what made his eighteenth one special was that it was always meant to be his wedding day.

It wasn't a secret and the Earth Kingdom had always expected a victory shortly afterwards. The Earth King expected the Fire Lord to surrender at the idea of being at war with two countries and because of the impending unification, tensions had been high for months. 

The war had shifted from both the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation playing on the offensive, to the Fire Nation regularly attacking Earth Kingdom colonies. The Earth Kingdom wasn’t losing the war, a few attacks here and there, the Earth Kingdom could withstand, but the Earth Kingdom was wary, afraid the Fire Nation would do something too hasty and the damage would instead force them to surrender. 

They were all angsty waiting for the Earth King's arrival. They were supposed to arrive earlier in the day, in the morning, but now the sun had already set and the moon was high in the sky. Although they had never gotten involved in the war, they had had the constant fear of the Fire Nation showing up at their gates for the past sixteen years and the Earth Kingdom being late to an event that had been set sixteen years ago was unsettling. 

When the warrior at the outlook post had finally spotted a fleet of Earth Kingdom ships it brought them all relief. Although he only expected the royal family to attend, especially in the midst of a war, it made sense for soldiers to come in case the Fire Nation wanted to stop the alliance and it made more sense why they were late when it was more than three ships this time. But despite making sense, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was off and the tight lipped smile that his father gave him after one of the Water Warriors had informed them, let him know his father felt the same.

Message of the outcome of the war came in the form of soot falling under the moonlight and the Fire Lord stepping out of the Earth King's flagship. 

The soot seemed to dance with the falling snowflakes in the rough breeze of the wind and nobody moved a muscle. The war had come to an end, and the Fire Nation's possession of Earth Kingdom’s war ships could only mean one thing and he felt frozen when the Fire Lord spoke. 

“King Heechul is dead and Prince Yukhei has been captured.” The Fire Lord let the significance of that sink in, but his father's facial expression never changed, his fathers face remained void of any emotion and he tried to calm the nerves he felt inside at the idea of Yukhei being imprisoned somewhere. “We have come in peace, we have no intention of attacking the Water Tribe. We only want to talk.”

“Why bring an entire fleet of ships then?” The Chief asked. His brother Mingyu shifted uncomfortably next to him and he felt the overall tension in the air.

“They are simply protecting the Fire Lord.” A young man to the right of the Fire Lord spoke up. The young man wore a small coronet in the shape of a flame around his top knot. He’d never seen the Crown Prince, had only heard about him, but he had seen the same headpiece in pictures of past Fire Nation Royal Family’s. The coronet was something only the heir to the Fire Lord was allowed to wear. 

The man himself was rather plain looking, with very pale skin, the only striking feature to him were his steel blue eyes. Blue eyes was a quality of the members of the Water Tribe and to see a Firebender, let alone the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation have blue eyes was something unheard of.

“Thank you, Minhyung.” The Fire Lord rested a hand on Prince Minhyung’s shoulder and his eyes met with Fire Prince and he quickly avoided his gaze. “We simply want to talk, we never wanted a war, and I doubt the Water Tribe wants to be involved in one. The Earth Kingdom has fallen and we simply come to speak about the alliance you made with the Earth King."

“If you come in peace, then you wouldn’t have a problem leaving the members of your fleet outside the gates.” Water Prince Namjoon said with a mocking smile.

“It would be my pleasure.” The Fire Lord gave them a smile in return and it felt ominous.

\---

If everything had gone the way it was supposed to, he would be getting ready to get married inside of the Spirit Oasis. The final adjustments to the green gown that their seamstress had put together, would be made. His eyes would be painted the same blue as his betrothal necklace. His hands and feet would be painted with a dye extracted from an Earth Kingdom tree. Instead he was seated inside the royal palace listening to the two nations work up the condition to a treaty.

He had always hated Assemblies. He was expected to sit still and listen closely, but not speak and he had felt like most of the time it was a waste of time and space for him to be there when he was expected to just look pretty. 

“It was to my understanding that the Earth Prince was to marry your Omega Prince.” One of the Fire Sages brought up after a stretch of silence. The conversation had mainly been between the Fire Lord and the Tribal Chief up until then and had been kept strictly political.

“The wedding was to be held on the winter solstice.” He itched to speak for himself more than he ever had, after all the conversation had switched to his engagement and he more than anyone in the room knew the implications and the terms surrounding his engagement, but his input would never be appreciated, especially in front of a foreign nation. For an omega to speak out of turn, it would be an embarrassment to the Water Tribe, so instead he let his father's advisor speak for him.

“Which is today? Correct?” His father gave the Fire Lord a nod. “We wanted to propose an alternative.”

“What is it?” His father questioned.

“You wanted a union between two powerful nations, the Earth Kingdom is now under our rule until we find a suitable level-headed leader, one that doesn’t start wars over a bear who died of natural causes. We don’t want to rule over the Earth Kingdom, that’s not the natural order of things.” The Fire Lord took a second to look around the room before his eyes settled back on him and he felt rigid under the Fire Lord's gaze. “The Earth Kingdom will be under a reform for a few years, the Dai Li had been controlling the Earth King for years and we just want to bring about a few changes before we give the rule back to the Earth Kingdom.”

“What does that have to do with us?” The head of the Water Warriors questioned and the Fire Lord gave them a smile that was more of a smirk than anything else.

“Prince Yukhei has been stripped of his title. It will be very unlikely he will become the Earth King once we unoccupy the Earth Kingdom. Meaning your Omega Prince would no longer be engaged to a member of the Royal Earth Family," the Fire Lord pointed out and he found himself agreeing. It was something he had been thinking about since the Fire Lord stepped out of the flagship, his engagement wasn’t necessarily broken but an alliance wouldn’t benefit them if Prince Yukhei was stripped of his title as the Earth Prince. It would be embarrassing for an Omega of his status to be engaged to a commoner in the Water Tribe, let alone a commoner of a different Nation.

“I’m not seeing what you’re getting at.” His father's face was composed but he could tell the Chief was beginning to get annoyed.

“Once we unoccupy the Earth Kingdom, there would be no telling if the Earth Kingdom would start another war for a petty reason. To prevent that from happening again, we would like to propose a unity of the Fire Nation and the Water Tribe.” The Fire Lord was clearly suggesting an engagement and it was beginning to sink in why the Fire Lord even bothered to come to the North Pole with the Crown Prince. 

The Fire Lord could have just sent word of their victory through a messenger and had the Water Tribes Chief summoned to speak about the terms of their surrender, but instead he chose to travel all the way to the North Pole to engage his son, to ask for an Omega’s hand in marriage in the way that Fire Nation traditions asked for. And it was clear from the fleet of ships sitting in their waters that the Fire Lord wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

“Are you suggesting that we betroth our Omega Prince to your Fire Prince?” The Chief had an eyebrow raised.

“Yes.” The Fire Lord took a moment to look at him, there were only two omegas in the room and the other was his mother. It was easy to tell who the ‘Omega Prince’ was.

“If I might remind everyone in this room, that the Moon and the Ocean spirit blessed the engagement of Prince Yukhei and Prince Donghyuck.” His brother Namjoon, the Crown Prince of the Water Tribe, had been quiet the entire meeting, but now he was finally speaking up and he looked mad. Namjoon had never agreed to his first engagement and he doubted Namjoon would easily agree to a second engagement now that he was old enough to be able to speak in a Royal Assembly. “Earth Prince or not, I don’t think we should go against a direct blessing from the spirits.”

“Did the spirits actually say they blessed the engagement? It was my understanding only Prince Donghyuck’s hair turned white.” The same fire sage spoke again.

“We took it to mean that Tui had blessed Prince Donghyuck and La blessed Prince Yukhei.” This time the head healer spoke up. “If the spirits blessed the engagement, I don’t think it would be wise to break the engagement.”

“What if I told you the Fire Sages received a prophecy from the Ocean Spirit upon the birth of Prince Minhyung.” It sounded scandalous for the Fire Lord to suggest that the Ocean Spirit would give the Fire Nation a prophecy over the Water Tribe. It sounded scandalizing, but it really wasn’t if he thought about it. The Spirits may favor a certain nation, but they don’t discriminate, so it was unlikely for it to happen but not impossible.

“Why would the Ocean Spirit give a prophecy to your Fire Sages?” The head healer made a show of glaring at the Fire Sages that were present.

“Why would the Ocean Spirit bless Prince Yukhei?” There wasn’t a clear answer to either question and the reality left the Water Tribe quiet. The Fire Lord continued, “The Ocean Spirit spoke of a unity between the Fire Prince and the Omega Prince of the Northern Water Tribe. Together they would bring about the beginning of a new era and peace for all four nations. Seeing as you only have one Omega Prince, I think it’s fair to assume the Ocean Spirit spoke of Prince Donghyuck.”

“Blasphemy!” The head healer had risen from his seat and looked ready to mull the Fire Lord. “Tui and La wouldn’t bless Prince Donghyuck and Prince Yukhei if the Omega Prince was to marry Prince Minhyung.”

“Prince Yukhei bears no mark of the Ocean spirit’s blessing. Meanwhile Prince Minhyung’s eyes turned blue on the night of the winter solstice of his third year.” He heard a few people around the room gasp. “That would have been Prince Donghyuck’s second year.”

“How do we know Prince Minhyung isn’t of mixed heritage?” His brother Mingyu had spoken up, Mingyu was third and last in line. It was a good question, something he hadn’t thought about.

“The Fire Sages would never allow for an alpha born from anyone other than the Fire Lord’s omega to sit on the right side of the throne.” Minhyung answered, he didn’t sound mad, like one would expect someone being accused of being a bastard child would be. He sounded tired as if it wasn’t the first time the question had been raised.

“That may be true, but how are we to know what the Spirits truly want?” Chief Yunho asked.

“How exactly was the first blessing invoked of the Moon and Ocean spirits?” The advisor of the Fire Lord asked. Nobody spoke, waiting for the Chief to speak. It wasn’t a secret the spirits persided in their terrestrial form in the North Pole, but to take the Fire Nation there left them all wary.

“The two Princes were submerged in the Spirit Oasis.” The Chief answered and the Fire Lord nodded in understanding.

“If we submerged the Fire Prince and your Omega Prince and something happened, would you accept that as a blessing?” The Fire Lord and the Chief looked at each other and Donghyuck couldn’t help, but to look up to look at Prince Minhyung. He was surprised to see the Prince already looking at him, he felt a blush creep up on his skin and he looked away quickly.

“I’m sorry to interrupt but nobody is asking what Donghyuck wants. I get we’re negotiating an alliance, but if Donghyuck doesn’t feel comfortable, then I don’t feel comfortable marrying my son off to someone else, blessing or not,” His mom said. An omega wasn’t allowed to speak in a Royal Assembly, but the only person allowed to silence the Chief’s Omega was the Chief himself and the Chief was silent.

“I think the Chief’s Omega has a point, Prince Donghyuck, how do you feel about an engagement with the Fire Prince?” the Fire Lord asked. What did he feel? His feeling had never been his own and to be suddenly asked about his opinion when it had never mattered before, was frightening.

He hesitated, throwing a glance at his father. He hadn’t been given permission to talk, but he had also been asked a direct question and it felt scandalous to even consider speaking, but everyone’s eyes were on him and the room had fallen silent waiting for his response. It was odd to feel the weight of everyone’s expectation.

“The Water Tribes prophets told me, my destiny was to bring peace to the four nations. If Tui and La agree that a unity with the Fire Prince is my destiny, then I will also agree that marrying the Fire Prince will lead to a road to peace,”he responded. He knew it was the right thing to say, but he didn’t know if he’d be able to look his brothers in the eye later.

\---

He had spent years envisioning his eighteenth Winter Solstice. He was supposed to get married under the same moonlight of the Winter Solstice that had blessed the engagement between him and Prince Yukhei. They were supposed to spend an hour or two celebrating their marriage at the winter festival with the citizens of the Water Tribe and the Earth Kingdom, before they would retire to bed. In the privacy of their room in the Royal Palace, Yukhei would take his virginity and at their climax Yukhei would give him the mating mark. It was supposed to be simple.

Instead he was informed his betrothed was imprisoned and he would now be potentially marrying Fire Prince Minhyung. The last thing he expected was to be facing the Fire Nation Prince in a bathrobe in front of the Spirit Oasis, but that was what had happened. 

Only each of the Prince’s personal assistants were present, which in reality was a bad idea, neither he nor Renjun knew how to bend and if the Fire Prince decided to attack him, he wouldn’t be able to defend himself. 

“We don’t have to take our robes off before we get in the Oasis,” the Fire Prince offered. Minhyung must have noticed his hesitancy to take off his robe like the Water Tribe prophets had suggested and he was thankful. “We should still hold hands when we get in though.”

Minhyung had a soft voice and up close Minhyung was cute, in a childlike way and in the end it’s what they both were, children forced to do things for the sake of others. Their lives were never their own, the fact that Minhyung could become his second fiance, a boy that he barely knew, said all that needed to be said. His brothers would be able to pick their own partners, but his was never his choice, even if he wouldn’t have gotten engaged to Prince Yukhei, his fiance would have been chosen for him by his father and the Council of Elders.

“Are you ready?” the Fire Prince asked. He wasn’t, but he grasped Minhyungs outstretched hand anyways. Together they stepped into the Oasis and as they both began to lie down in the pool, the water began to glow, but it was still too soon to tell. “I expected the water to be cold.”

“My people believe that the energies of Tui and La keep the oasis warm and the vegetation flourishing.” Minhyung let out a soft hum. He expected it to feel weird, holding the Fire Prince's hand and floating in the Spirit Oasis barely clothed when they had barely met two hours ago, but it wasn’t. 

He had never felt comfortable with the Earth Prince, it always felt like he was talking to a stranger. The Earth Prince was friendly and he felt like that’s where the problem lied in their relationship. Yukhei treated him like a friend, but he never felt like they were friends, only two boys forced to interact because they were being watched by their dads.

“How long are we supposed to stay in here?” Minhyung sounded muffled, and it felt serene to feel like he was alone for the first time in years. Sure Minhyung, their assistants and the two spirits were there with him, but he didn’t feel a burden from their presence. The presence of the spirits felt almost therapeutic. 

“Probably until the water stops glowing” He could feel Minhyungs eyes on his but he chose to keep his eyes on the moon shining down on them through the opening at the top of the oasis. He wondered if Minhyung had known his whole life that he was supposed to marry Donghyuck, like he had known he was supposed to marry Yukhei. 

It was an interesting thing, their pending engagement. Minhyung had to have know that was the reason they were coming, but yet he couldn’t help but think that Minhyung couldn’t truly want this, they had never met before and waltzing into the Northern Water Tribe on a stolen Earth Kingdom ship probably wasn’t how Mark wanted to meet his future husband. But it was how things had turned out and it wasn’t like either one of them had control over the situation anyways.

Soon enough, Tui and La began to encircle them and he took it as a sign of the spirits' interest in them. Minhyung gripped his hand harder and he didn’t realize anything had changed until Minhyungs hand had gone slack in his hold. The water had stopped glowing and when he looked over at Minhyung, he was unconscious and a few chunks of hair at the front of his hair had turned white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all I'm back with yet another Markhyuck fic cause I'm trash. I was debating if I should even post this because I have commitment issues and I kind of wanted to get further in my writing before I posted anything, but I am also impatient. The quarantine, procrastination (I hate midterms), and boredom lead me to write this.
> 
> I got inspired by Marks hair in kick it and I was like I kind of want to write something where Marks hair looks like that. I imagine his hair to look the same, but white instead of the blonde extensions and at least down to his shoulders. Donghyuck is 1000% inspired by Yue of ATLA, although he shall not meet the same fate on my watch.
> 
> Thank you guy for reading, I hope you enjoyed it and come along for the ride. *wink* *wink*


	2. Moonflower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was ironic, for all the hell he had mentally given Yukhei’s betrothal necklace, he also hadn’t carved the wedding band he was giving to Minhyung.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did some changes over the weekend, the most notable one is I changed my username, just thought I'd mention it in case you were confused to who I was, lol. The other changes you probably won't notice and if you do, I'd prefer you don't mention it.
> 
> I didn't add any tags this chapter, but I would encourage you to check the tags or the beginning author notes in the future before you read each chapter, I probably won't add any tags for the next few chapters but I am planning to in the future, this is just a warning for the future.
> 
> Edit 1/8/21: This chapter and previous chapters have been edited, nothing has changed plot wise although some chapters/scenes are more heavily edited than others.

Walking down the bridge towards the Spirit Oasis wasn’t how he envisioned his morning to go. 

After Minhyung’s fainting episode he expected the two nations to take their time to work out the logistics on what they wanted to do next. What he didn’t expect was to be ushered into a hastily made wedding gown when he woke up, he had no idea if it was even up to Fire Nation standards or where they managed to find the red fabric in the vast ocean of blue and purples fabrics of the Water Tribe. He had a feeling the dress was intended to be flowy, but instead the dress stuck awkwardly to his figure and the sleeves were entirely too long and the elbows awkwardly placed.

He agreed to the wedding sure, but he at least expected it to be another year before the wedding took place. There wasn’t a war going on anymore, so he wondered what the rush was, were they afraid that the people of the Water Tribe would be upset? If anything they would be more upset when they saw him in the canal in his final gondola ride around the city in red instead of green, with the Fire Nation Prince of all people.

He wasn’t sure what kind of rumors had been spread over the night, after all he never arrived at the Winter Festival. When he asked Renjun about it, Renjun had given him a sympathetic smile and said he hadn’t heard anything. It was evident Renjun had lied to him, but he preferred his final day in the Water Tribe to be as peaceful as possible and he didn’t want to start it by arguing with Renjun, so he dropped the topic.

Like the original wedding, his wedding with Minhyung was held in the Spirit Oasis. He didn’t feel nervous on the short walk there, he was still signing his freedom away, no matter who the Prince was, it was something he had prepared for all his life and he found no use in lingering on his own feelings, after all, they had never mattered before. 

His friends had had boyfriends or girlfriends growing up, but he never dared looked at an alpha as more than a friends, his father had eyes everywhere and although his father never held a tight rule over his brothers, his brothers and his father were extremely overprotective when it came to his friends. He was never explicitly prohibited from having alpha friends but he was always advised not to get too close to one. The look in his father's eyes always told him what he truly meant, don’t fall in love.

Minhyung looked the same, with his hair up the white pieces of hair were hard to spot. If Donghyuck hadn’t seen the change the night before he wouldn’t have noticed the few strands of white hair that could be seen despite Minhyung’s hair pulled up.

Minhyung wasn’t wearing the same military uniform he was the day before, instead he was wearing what Donghyuck could only assume was Fire Nation wedding attire. Minhyung looked much more put together then Donghyuck felt, probably having his attire sown together for months and specifically tailored to suit his figure. He wondered if Minhyung was laughing at what he was wearing, he had no idea who made the wedding gown, maybe the Fire Nation brought it with them, but he knew it didn’t fit right. It was too small and he wondered if Minhyung was disappointed in how big he was. He wasn’t fat by any means but he had never cared too much about his weight and putting the gown on made him realize that he probably should have cared more. 

The gown was much more revealing than the Earth Kingdom one was, and when he had asked Renjun about the neckline, Renjun had given him another sympathetic look. The Fire Prince would mark him in front of everyone. It felt barbaric, something that he hadn’t been prepared for when he agreed to let the spirits decide. In the Water Tribe the mating mark was intimate, something only done in the bedroom, between both partners. In the Fire Nation only the omega received the mark and it made him feel slighted, even if it wasn’t Prince Minhyung’s fault.

When he reached Minhyung, Minhyung clasped his hands, it felt weird. Although he had held Minhyung’s hand the night before, it felt different to hold the hand of the man he now knew he would spend the rest of his life with. 

The wedding was a small event, much like the original one. Only respective Royal Families and a Fire Sage were present and he was thankful now more than ever for the size because it was embarrassing enough being publicly bitten by his mate. 

It had been agreed on that his father and the Fire Sage would officiate the wedding. He could see his father's lips moving, but all he could hear was the ringing in his ears. He wasn’t prepared for the sudden feeling of nausea that came over him and he was beginning to sweat and he hoped the Fire Nation’s portion wasn’t long because he knew he would start sweating off his makeup soon.

Minhyung must have noticed, because he felt Minhyung grasp his hands tighter. His hands must have been clammy and he felt embarrassed all of the sudden. He saw Minhyungs lips move and it was then that he realized they were saying their vows. The Fire Sage turned to look at him, he waited until the Fire Sage stopped talking to give his response.

“I do,” he forced out. He couldn’t really hear himself, he wasn’t sure if it came out as a whisper or a shout, but he hoped it was at the least coherent. 

Minhyung let go of his hands briefly before he felt Minhyung slip a ring on one of his fingers. He wondered if he should have gotten Minhyung a ring when he suddenly felt Renjun slip next to him with a ring on a pillow. He briefly looked at it. It was blue, the same color as the betrothal necklaces were, small flames were carved around the band. It was ironic, for all the hell he had mentally given Yukhei’s betrothal necklace, he also hadn’t carved the wedding band he was giving to Minhyung.

He slipped the ring onto Minhyungs finger, copying Minhyungs actions. He hoped he had done it right, not having much to go off of besides what Minhyung had done. He faintly heard the Fire Sage say something and Minhyung came closer to him.

Minhyung gently cupped his cheek and Minhyungs eyes wandered to his neck. He knew what Minhyung was intending to do, he himself had been mentally working himself up to what Minhyung was intending to do. He knew he should bare his neck and he would, but he took a second to look at Minhyungs face.

Minhyung didn’t want to be here either, Minhyung didn’t look happy and although it should hurt, it didn’t. They were on the same page and that was more reassuring than anything else, he and Yukhei had never been on the same page. Yukhei had liked him. Yukhei enjoyed his company and it was the most frustrating thing about the Earth Prince. He would much rather Minhyung not like him, at least then they would be on the same page.

He bared his neck and slowly closed his eyes. Minhyung stepped closer, before Minhyung clumsily bumping his cheek with his forehead and a soft _I’m sorry_ came out of the Fire Prince's lips. The Fire Prince waited a few moments before lightly kissed the base of his neck and he felt himself go lax in Minhyung’s hold. He wasn’t sure if it was due to the alpha imposing himself on him or his omega submitting to the alpha, but it didn’t really matter. A second later Minhyung bit into his skin, he willed himself not to moan, suddenly feeling warmth in his face and his body subconsciously leaning into the alpha. He counted to what felt like the longest ten seconds of his life in his head before he put his hands on Minhyungs shoulders, not pushing him away, but clearly telling him to stop.

The feeling after Minhyung stopped biting his neck was a weird one and one he hadn’t anticipated. He felt himself longing for the alpha on an instinctual level and he wondered if this would be a reoccurring feeling. 

\---

The gondola ride around the city was awkward. He had asked for his furs upon leaving the Spirit Oasis and he was given a fur coat that had been dyed red. He wondered when they had even had time to dye them, knowing the Fire Nation definitely didn’t bring those. The Fire Nation had no practical need for furs in islands near the equator that never got colder than a chilly day.

The Water Tribe citizens that had seen them were staring and he was glad his neck was at least covered up, he didn’t think he would have been able to get on the gondola if he wasn’t. He felt conscious of the waterbender moving the gondola, he usually didn’t mind, but now he felt like they were being watched and listened in on and he felt foreign in a place that was meant to be his home.

“The city is beautiful,” Minhyung said and he looked in awe of their surroundings.

“It is, isn’t it,” He said, looking at the city built out of ice. He wondered if he’d miss it when he was gone. He wasn’t necessarily too attached to the city itself. He wasn’t allowed out of the palace by himself, the chief believed it was inappropriate of an omega and especially an omega of his status to be out of their home alone. He was only ever allowed to leave the palace with his assistant and at least one Water Warrior. Even when he did go out, he wasn’t allowed to enjoy himself in the city, usually only allowed to take rides in the canals. He also didn’t have many friends anymore, only Renjun and Mingyu. His other brothers had always kept their distance and although he did love them, he didn’t know if he would miss people he barely had any interactions with.

“You’re going to miss this aren’t you?” Minhyung asked. The alpha looked like he pitied him and it made him want to talk back, but he didn’t want Minhyung to hate him, at least not yet. Maybe in the future they wouldn’t be able to stand each other, but for right now he wanted to at least be amicable.

“I will. I always knew I would be leaving, so it won’t be so hard to say bye.” It wasn’t completely a lie, he would miss certain aspects of his life, but not all, ultimately it would be hard not to miss ones home.

“You can always come back,” Minhyung said. He perked up at the sentence. With the Earth Kingdom, coming back to the Water Tribe was never on the table, he was to sit inside the walls of the royal palace for the rest of his life and in the Earth King's words, be pretty. Although he felt an excitement of the idea of being able to come back, he tried not to get too happy, Minhyung may not be completely aware if he was allowed to leave or not.

“I guess it was never something I would have previously been able to do, so I didn’t think I would be able to with you.” He avoided mentioning Yukhei or the Earth Kingdom, not really knowing if Minhyung would get mad at the mention of his previous fiance. 

“I can’t guarantee you it would be often, but we’ll visit. We can always hop on my dragon and swing by,” Minhyung let out a laugh. It sounded stiff, like a laugh that Minhyung had practiced to sound prim and proper, to let out only at appropriate times when something was supposed to be funny even if he didn’t believe so. It made him wonder what Minhyung would sound like when he truly found something funny.

“Do you really have a dragon?” He asked. He had heard the stories of elite firebenders being gifted a dragon when they had shown mastery of the art, it would make sense if the Fire Prince had one.

“Yeah, do you want one too? Mine laid an egg.” He wasn’t sure if Minhyung was offering him the egg because he wanted to or if he felt obligated to.

“I should meet yours first, then we’ll see.” Minhyung looked at him fondly and he had to stop himself from blushing. Minhyung seemed like a nice alpha, he didn’t seem like the type to force himself on him, but he didn’t know Minhyung at all. It scared him in a sense, they were practically strangers and it made him question if his father even cared for him, why hadn’t his father at least tried to give them an engagement period?

“Do you ever wish the spirits picked someone else?” Minhyung said it in a whisper so low that the waterbender wouldn’t be able to hear them over the sound of the water and the chatter of the city.

“I used to, but I’ve learned to accept my fate for what it was. I can’t run from it, so I’d rather make the most of it.” Minhyung gave him a nod. “Do you?” He asked as an afterthought. 

“I did, but now I’m just along for the ride.” Minhyung gave him a genuine smile and he tried not to look into it too much.

\---

"Are you okay? You've been awfully quiet since we left." Renjun said with a soft voice. Renjun had softly knocked on his door and was peeking his head in the doorway.

"I'm just thinking," he sighed. He had never left the Water Tribe so he didn’t know how long it would take them to get to the Fire Nation. It was hard to decide if he wanted to get there quickly or slowly. Once he got there he would have to face his new life head on and it would quickly sink in.

"A Yaun for your thoughts?" Renjun said while approaching him. He looked down at the ring Minhyung had given him in the morning, it seemed impersonal, a golden band with a flame on it. There was no way Minhyung made it and it just made the whole wedding seem fake because he knew he didn’t make the ring he gave to Minhyung and it made him feel sick. No celebration was held and he was ushered onto a ship an hour or two after, the rest of his things had been packed for him while he was on the gondola. 

"I don't know how to feel about this whole thing," he confessed. Renjun's eyes were warm and he couldn't help, but be sorry for taking Renjun from their homeland. Renjun came freely although it was Renjun’s duty to be his life companion, but Renjun had always had the choice not to come with him. He knew Renjun wanted to come with him, but if it wasn't for him and his destiny, Renjun wouldn't have to abandon his family like he had. "I never really wanted to be engaged to Yukhei, but I don't know if marrying Minhyung is better or worse."

"Prince Minhyung is supposed to be your destiny, he should be the better option." He scoffed at Renjun’s words. The Council had made a mistake before and they could have made one again.

"I don't even know what destiny even means anymore. I was supposedly destined to marry Yukhei and now Minhyung is supposed to be my soulmate. It's all just too much for me to think about," he replied. He was a married man now and it all seemed like a nightmare. He didn’t have any idea of what his dream wedding would be like, knowing everything would be planned for him, but a rushed wedding wasn’t something that made him feel good either. 

He had changed back into his Water Tribe clothes, not having anything red or gold. He had wondered if he would be expected to wear Fire Nation clothes from now on, he would have to ask Renjun to investigate if the Fire Nation had brought him clothes. 

Earlier it had felt weird seeing himself in red, always having imagined himself wearing green for the rest of his life. He had _prepared_ himself to wear green.

“The other servants wanted us to leave this behind, but I told them to let me keep it.” Renjun said holding up the betrothal necklace Yukhei had given him.

“You know I’ll never be able to wear it again.” He felt nostalgia wash over him. When he was little and still didn’t know the true significance of Yukhei’s visits he had dreamed about an alpha he was in love with giving him a betrothal necklace and them living happily ever after.

“True, but your kids might have questions about Water Tribe customs, they should at least know how to properly court an omega.” Renjun said jokely.

“You think they’ll even be allowed to follow any Water Tribe traditions?” He asked and Renjun sighed.

“I don’t know, the Fire Nation doesn’t seem as ruthless as the Earth Kingdom always made them seem,” Renjun told him. The room was only lit by a few torches and if Donghyuck didn’t know Renjun he would have missed the blush on Renjun’s face.

“You met someone.” He pointed an accusatory finger at Renjun. “Spill, Jun. Who is it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,”Renjun said defensively and he looked like he was about ready to bolt out the door.

“Dude you used to have the hugest crush on my fiance, I deserve to know who this new alpha is.” It was a running joke between them, Renjun used to make googly eyes at Yukhei when they were younger and it would make him laugh. Eventually Renjun grew out of the crush, but he had never let it go.

“He’s your ex-fiance now.” Renjun sat down next to him, Renjun might pretend like he didn’t want to tell Donghyuck about his new crush, but Donghyuck knew that was part of the reason he came to his room so late. “He helped me bring our stuff into the ship.”

“And?” He raised an eyebrow and Renjun lightly hit his shoulder.

“I don’t know, we talked for a while. He asked me if I was also coming to the Fire Nation, he told me he was a royal guard and we’d probably see eachother often.”

“What’s his name?” he asked Renjun.

“Jaemin.” Renjun whispered it, he let out a giggle and Donghyuck couldn’t help but let out a giggle too.

“I’m happy for you, I know you never wanted to get in any serious relationships because we were always supposed to leave, but you should give this a chance.”

“You should give Minhyung a chance, too. You never know, you might end up liking him,” Renjun suggested.

“I don’t know, maybe if we had met on different terms I would have been more inclined to like him.” Minhyung seemed nice, but there was only so much he could see in a guy he had been pressured into mating with.

“Is it weird? Being mated to him.” Was it weird? Perhaps it was, he hadn’t known what to expect, the feeling was foreign, but he wasn’t sure if it was weird.

“I can feel him, all the time now. It’s like he’s always there, I don’t know if he can feel me too, since you know.” It wasn’t a common practice for mates to be half bonded in the Northern Water Tribe. He knew half bonds weren’t the same as a full bond, but he had never been told to what extent.

“I can try to figure out what I can find out about it.” Renjun made a point of looking at his neck. Minhyung had bit his neck higher than he would have liked, the mark was slightly exposed even when he wore his regular clothes and he wondered if omegas in the Fire Nation usually showed off their mating marks.

“I feel lonely without him,” he confessed. It wasn’t something he wanted to admit, he barely met Minhyung and to feel so attached was weird. Minhyung had a point of allowing him to sleep in his own room at least until they arrived in the Fire Nation. He had appreciated it at the time, they had done many intimate things in one day and he felt like having to prepare himself to be bedded by a boy who was practically a stranger would have been too much. But now he realized he would have liked to share beds with him, just to satisfy his desire to be near him.

“That's normal for a newly mated couple. Although I’m not sure if he feels the same way,” Renjun said with caution. Donghyuck could feel some of Minhyungs emotions oozing through their bond, he wasn't sure how much of Minhyungs emotions were actually filtered through and if they were even accurate, but Minhyung wasn't longing for him from what he can tell, he couldn’t tell if Minhyung was thinking of him, only so much can be deduced from a mood ring.

A comfortable silence came over them, if they were at home, he would have asked Renjun to cuddle with him. It was something frowned up by the council and his parents, but they had always turned a blind eye to his and Renjun’s relationship. They believed Renjun to be in love with him and maybe Renjun was, it wasn’t something he would ever bring up, knowing regardless of Renjun’s answer his future had already been picked for him. 

But they weren’t at home and he didn’t want Fire Nation servants getting any ideas.

\---

They had been on Fire Nation waters for what felt like weeks. In reality it had only been about a day. They had been docked on the harbor for what he was certain was hours. Although the Fire Nation had sent word the Fire Lord would be arriving soon, the Great Gates of Azulon had still risen. The Fire Lord had been unhappy to say the least. They had been docked on the harbor while the Fire Lord got off with literal steam coming out of his ears. Minhyung had briefly apologized for his father's behavior before excusing himself to go to the deck of the ship.

They had barely spoken in the week it took to get to the Fire Nation. They had docked a few times on Earth Kingdom ports and Minhyung had been asked if he wanted to get off but he hadn’t felt comfortable wearing the new Fire Nation clothes Minhyung had given him out in public yet. Like his wedding gown the clothes were too tight and he felt too constricted to walk around a foreign city, thankfully the royal attire covered most of his neck and wasn’t revealing at all. He figured the wedding gown was just made that way to make the bonding part of the ceremony easy. Minhyung assured him he could pick his own clothing once they arrived in the Fire Nation and he wasn’t sure if he’d take up that offer, he didn’t know anything about Fire Nation traditions or clothing and he didn’t want to look ridiculous. He was also given a coronet, exactly the same as Minhyungs, just smaller and he had been instructed to wrap it around his top knot. 

He heard a light knock on his door, figuring it was Renjun, he told them it was open. He was in the middle of changing and was half dressed, he had been wearing his leisure clothes earlier, something still formal by Water Tribe standards but nothing too fancy. He had heard from one of the servants on the ship that they would actually be getting off the ship soon and had decided to change just in case.

“Should I come back later, I didn’t realize you weren’t dressed yet,” he heard someone that was definitely not Renjun say.

He stilled at the sound of Minhyung’s voice and he turned his head towards the door, Minhyung had stepped into the room and closed the door, but his hand was still on the knob.

"It's okay, we're married now," he let out a laugh that he hoped didn't sound awkward. He hurried to slip his robe on. 

"I was coming to tell you we're going to get off the ship soon," Minhyung took a second to look at his water tribe clothes laid out on his bed. "You know you don't have to wear the Fire Nation clothes if you don't feel comfortable yet."

Yet, it was the keyword. It would be expected of him to wear the color of his husband's nation, it didn't make a difference if he started now or if he started later, his comfort hadn't ever mattered. If things had been different, and they were commoners and not royalty, he wouldn't have had to give up his home, his country or his culture. But things weren't different and now he was the Prince Consort of the Fire Nation, he had to give up his past ties.

"I'm not uncomfortable,” he replied.

"Prince Donghyuck, you and I don't have to lie to each other. I know we both didn't really have a say in this, it can't be easy giving up your whole life and being expected to feel fine. We can at least be honest with each other." Minhyungs eyes held a softness that a Prince shouldn't have, it was a weakness, in the Water Tribe they were always taught to keep all emotions to themselves in front of strangers. They, he and Minhyung, were strangers, strangers that would be forced to share a bed, strangers that now had a bond only breakable by death, but strangers nonetheless. Their bond was forged by destiny, a bond neither of them wanted, a bond that held a significance that they didn't even know yet. In time they would know if they had been lied to by the spirits, but now all they could do was to live out their lives. 

"I am being honest with you," he replied. He could feel skepticism through the bond and he didn't blame Minhyung. 

"I'm just saying, you don't have to do things you don’t want to.” Could Minhyung not hear the irony of his words? He was already doing things he didn’t want to, they were always doing things they didn’t want to.

“I understand your concern, but truly I’m not uncomfortable.” Minhyung let his eyes wander around the room until his eyes landed on something on his dresser and Donghyuck didn’t have to look to know what it was.

“At least wear your necklace, I haven’t seen you wear it the whole way here,” Minhyung suggested. Donghyuck resisted the urge to laugh bitterly at Minhyung’s words. Minhyung wouldn’t suggest he wear it if he knew what it meant, he would feel mocked that he even brought it along with him.

“I’ll think about it,” he offered although he knew he wouldn’t, it was out of the question to ever wear it again and he made a mental note to have Renjun keep it for him.

\---

He didn’t get to see much of the harbor or the Royal Plaza before he was ushered into a palanquin. It appeared everyone in the Royal family was to ride in a separate one and it was a weird concept to him to have people carry him, but it wasn’t his place to question customs. The ride to the palace felt long, but he had the feeling that it was because he couldn’t see much past the curtains of the palanquin.

The Fire Nation Royal Palace was bigger than he expected, he had seen drawings of it in his history books, but he expected it to be smaller. He didn’t have much time to admire the structure before a royal servant led him inside. Renjun was back at his side and it made him feel a tad bit better that he at least had his friend in a foreign land.

The inside held large halls with high ceilings, large tapestries lined the wall and fire themed paintings and sculptures were littered throughout the hallways. He was briefly asked if he wanted to see the Royal Gallery, he breathed out the appropriate answer, it would be disrespectful to say no, although he didn’t care to see paintings of the past Fire Lords.

He heard the painting depicted the significant events held during the Fire Lords Rule. It made him curious as to what Minhyung’s painting would hold when Minhyung’s rule as Fire Lord came to an end. Would he be represented in the painting in some way or would he forever be a hindrance to Minhyung, he wondered if they would in fact bring peace to the four Nations or if the alliance was simply a way for the Fire Nation to conquer all four nations under a guise of unity.

\---

"We don't have to share a bed yet if you don't want," Minhyung offered. They had finished the abbreviated tour of the Palace, Minhyung had made it clear that they hadn’t seen all of the Palace, only the important things. Minhyung would show him more places as time went on, or at least that's what the Fire Lord hinted at. 

Minhyung had let his hair down and it was the first time he was seeing the white strands of hair on Minhyung’s head, at least properly. It was breathtaking in the way his own hair felt to everyone around him, but himself. He looked at Minhyung and he saw a different man, they were two sides of the same coin really, both bearing the marks of an unwanted destiny. In the Water Tribe, people recognized him by his hair and he was sure people recognized Minhyung by his eyes.

"I'm not uncomfortable, I appreciate your concern Prince Minhyung," he told the alpha. He didn’t in fact appreciate Prince Minhyungs concern. Things would be much easier if Minhyung was a cruel alpha who didn't care about his feelings, but Minhyung was kind and considerate and it made it hard for him to dislike Minhyung. "You know it goes both ways, right?" 

"What?" Minhyung cheeks flushed red and he could feel Minhyungs embarrassment in his gut and for a second it made him dizzy, his own face grew warm although he himself wasn't embarrassed. He wondered if this would be what it would be like from now on, Minhyungs emotions reflecting onto him like the other half of a broken mirror. 

"You keep telling me I don't have to do things, but you also don't have to do things you don't want. I wouldn't be offended if you were uncomfortable sharing your bed or your room," he tried to sound nonchalant. He knew his feelings would be hurt if Minhyung told him he felt uncomfortable sharing a bed, especially since his omega had been craving Minhyungs touch since their wedding, but he also didn’t want to box Minhyung in.

"I'm sorry if I gave the impression I was projecting my emotions onto you," Minhyung said with a hint of embarrassment still on his face.

"You didn't, I just wanted you to know that it goes both ways." 

Sharing a bed with Minhyung wasn't awkward persay, what was awkward was feeling Minhyung arousal through their bond, _did Minhyung know he would feel it?_

It made sense for Minhyung to be affected by him, they hadn’t been this close since they had bonded. For his side of the bed he could smell their scents mingling in the air and if he hadn’t felt Minhyung’s arousal he definitely would have smelled it by now.

He wondered if he should ignore it or bring it up. If he brought it up then he would have to potentially address the _issue_ and he didn’t know if he would be able to go too far. He didn’t know if he wanted to go that far and he would have to if Minhyung decided he wanted certain things from him. He could never tell his alpha no, because he was bound to him and his omega would submit regardless of how he actually felt and speaking up would only ignite a conversation he didn’t want to have right.

He was so lost in thought that he didn’t realize Minhyung was getting out of bed until he saw Minhyung start to walk around the bed in his peripheral vision.

“Prince Minhyung where are you going?” He noticed Minhyung was sweating, was Minhyung going into a rut? That wouldn’t be good, at least not for him.

“I’m… I’ll be back, I’m going to the restroom.” Minhyung sounded hoarse and he resisted the urge to let out a whimper at the sound of the alphas voice.

It was hard to pretend he couldn’t feel Minhyung pleasing himself through the bond and it was even harder to resist the urge to touch himself when he could hear Minhyung's muffled moans of his name whispered into the open air of their room. He should feel mortified, mortified that he was imagining Minhyung swiftly stroking his own cock, but he wasn’t.

It was easy to imagine the hands on his own body lightly grazing his own skin were his alphas and not his own. He imagined the hand at his waistband was Minhyung, he felt his breath hitch as he slid his hand under the waistband of his underpants and lightly touched the head of his cock. He could feel himself get wet at the thought of his mate above him and for a moment he thought about fingering himself until he decided against it, it would become too messy and he wouldn’t be able to look at Minhyung ever again.

He lifted up his hips and pulled down his pants and underpants until his dick springed out. He felt a shiver at the sudden contact of the cold air, he began to stroke his cock in sync with the waves of pleasure he felt through the bond and the muffled moans he could hear Minhyung letting out.

He didn’t last long, he’d never experienced anything like this and when Minhyung came so did he, he blacked out what felt like hours, but he knew it had only been a few seconds. Once he came to it, he began to feel shame for jerking off to Minhyung’s moan, he knew Minhyung had heard him and he felt like a creep for listening to him. 

He looked around for the cloth he had seen on Minhyung’s side table earlier. He lightly wet it using a pitcher of water that was by his own side table and cleaned himself off, he threw the cloth in their laundry basket and laid back down as quickly as he could.

He pretended to be asleep when Minhyung came back to bed, Minhyung’s emotions felt light and he was happy at least one of them enjoyed themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had every intention of skipping the wedding, because I didn't feel it was important at first, a wedding is a wedding but then I thought about it and I was like, you know what, it is important and I was just being lazy before, lol.
> 
> Just a warning, the next few chapters may feel anticlimactic and they might feel like fillers, but I don't particularly think they are. I just don't want to rush anything, because I feel like a have a tendency to do that.
> 
> Thank you to the people that supported the last chapter and left encouraging comments, it was much appreciated. Also thank you to all new and future readers for tuning in!


	3. Let the Wind Blow and the Fire Extinguish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And here?” The look Minhyung gave him wasn’t of pity like the looks he got in the Water Tribe or of promised victory like the Earth Kings, or of disapproval like most of the Fire Nation citizens. It was something different. Something Donghyuck didn’t want to address.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 1/8/21: This chapter and previous chapters have been edited, nothing has changed plot wise although some chapters/scenes are more heavily edited than others.

Being the Prince Consort of the Fire Nation was a lot harder than he expected. He was prepared to not do much and be expected to be pretty when needed, after all that was what the Earth King had always expected of him. Turns out he needed to be pretty a lot more than he had previously anticipated.

He was expected to always be at Minhyung’s side, they were supposed to be one entity but Donghyuck just felt like some kind of guard following Minhyung around the whole day. He wondered if his new purpose was to just follow Minhyung around for the rest of their lives. There was no practical reason for them to always be in the same room, he was raised to be docile and he knew absolutely nothing about politics and that's what all Minhyungs meetings involved.

The Fire Assembly meetings were absolutely dreadful, more often than not he sat quietly unless the General or Admiral addressed him. They would make snide comments about him and his heritage, sarcastically commenting on his hair. He wondered if the Fire Nation knew about the streaks of white Minhyung now possessed in his head, or if it was a well kept secret, one that Minhyung himself was willing to hide. The servant that did Minhyung’s hair in the mornings would coat the Fire Prince's hair in black ink and would throw disapproving glances at him when he would watch the servant temporarily dye Minhyung’s hair.

Minhyung didn’t seem to notice any of this and it made him wonder how sheltered Minhyung’s life had been before to not even notice the officers' comments towards him or the dirty looks the servants in the palace gave him. 

“How was life in the Water Tribe? I’m imagining you miss the ice,” General Choi said. On its own it sounded harmless, but the taunting tone the General used made his stomach twist uncomfortably. He hated when they called him the Ice Prince and it was only a matter of time before one of them used it.

“I miss my family, but I’m happy here,” It was a lie, he wasn’t happy here, but he also wasn’t unhappy either and he had long given up missing a family that didn’t really care for him.

“I'm sure you miss waterbending,”General Choi said. There was no way to know if it was a jab at his inability to bend, after all he didn’t know what exactly the Fire Nation knew about Water Tribe customs. 

He could assume they knew very little, if the canister of water Minhyung had given him, ‘for your defense’ in Minhyungs words, was anything to go off of. It was laughable, he had seen waterbenders master draw litters of water solely from the moisture in the air and if he was good enough to defend himself he wouldn’t need a canister of water. He still tucked it into his pockets because Minhyung would give him pointed looks when he left the canister on the nightstand.

“I miss the beauty of it,” he replied, telling the truth, he used to sneak into the training room in the palace to watch his brothers practice, their fighting styles were all different and Mingyu had always left him breathless. 

Mingyu bended like he was dancing and he was graceful despite his lanky limbs, Mingyu was quick too and Namjoon always had difficulty beating Mingyu. If Mingyu were to challenge Namjoon for his position as future chief like alphas used to when they were much more in touch with their animalistic and primitive sides, it would be likely Mingyu would win. Namjoon was strong, but their style of waterbending had never been about strength, it was about fluidity, the fluidity Namjoon didn’t have and although Namjoon was a good bender, he had never been on the level of a waterbending master.

“You should give us a demonstration, it's hard to find waterbenders in the Fire Nation,” he almost laughed at the Generals' words, Yukhei used to make similar requests whenever he would visit the Water Tribe and it was now easy to wave off such solicitation, having years of practice from an eager Earth Prince.

“The Northern Water Tribe only uses waterbending as a defense mechanism or for practical uses. It would be inappropriate to ask a waterbender to show off.” It wasn’t a complete lie, they didn’t have water dances like the people of the Southern Water Tribe. The omegas in the Northern Water Tribe weren’t allowed to bend because it was expected that an omega would always have an alpha at their side that could defend them if needed. They treated bending as a weapon and omegas weren’t allowed to wield any weapons at any cost. 

The alphas weren’t supposed to use bending unless they were training or their jobs required them to, but he had known plenty that had used it to try to woo omegas. 

“You and Prince Minhyung should have a friendly duel then, I'm sure that would be fun,” the General stated. It was a complete disregard of his previous statement and it made his blood boil, but he knew he couldn’t let his anger show because it would only reflect badly on him and it would give people a valid reason to dislike him. He would be called temperamental and rude and he couldn’t let that be the Fire Nation citizens opinion of him.

“It seems like Prince Donghyuck isn’t comfortable with the idea, so I shall decline for him,” The Fire Lord looked displeased with the General and Minhyung gave him a look of concern, appearing to only realize that he could possibly be upset.

“Oh course, I don’t wish to make the Ice Prince uncomfortable.” He felt the corners of his lips twitched and he had to make an effort to keep his face from scrunching up in frustration.

\---

“I hate the Fire Nation,” he said when Renjun accompanied him to the unoccupied private tea room, nobody was allowed in without the Royal Family’s permission. He had left his temporarily appointed guard, Jaemin, outside the door, not really feeling in the mood to be listened in on or keep up appearance for that matter, even if it was Jaemin.

“What happened?” Renjun looked mildly concerned. Their new life was an adjustment for both of them. Everything was so warm here and they hated it, at times he found his eyes lingering on his furs tucked away in his closet. It felt weird to go outside and not have to bundle up, even if he could only really go outside to the gardens or to the turtle duck pond.

“Nothing new, General Choi was being an asshole and I hate him,” he groaned, feeling the sudden urge to throw something in the General's face next time he saw him.

“Did he call you the Ice Prince again?” General Choi and Admiral Bang always said it mockly and he wondered if the Fire Lord caught on to their taunts by now. It was unlikely the Fire Lord would say something unless they said something more forward, it was supposed to be Minhyung who should speak up about it. Minhyung should notice he was uncomfortable, it was part of Minhyungs duties as an alpha and Minhyung simply didn’t notice.

“Yes and he told the Fire Lord it would be fun to see me and Prince Minhyung duel.” Renjun let out a gasp and Donghyuck rested his head on Renjun’s shoulder for a second before sitting up straight again. He couldn’t afford for anyone to catch them touching, people would deem it inappropriate and the citizens of the Fire Nation were just looking for reasons not to like him.

“Does Prince Minhyung know you’re not a bender?” Renjun asked. He made a point of pulling out the canister of water from his pocket and Renjun gave him a nod of understanding.

“He hasn’t asked and I don’t plan to tell him.” Renjun gave him a look, it wasn’t judging, they knew each other too well to judge each other.

“Maybe if you told him how you feel about the Generals and Admirals comments, he could make them stop,” Renjun suggested. It wasn’t a bad idea, but he didn’t want to make a big deal out of something that was spawned out of pettiness of the two officers.

“I don’t want them to get into an argument because of me, they already dislike me as it is, I don’t want Minhyung to cause an even bigger problem,” he responded, thinking of the way he knew they wouldn’t stop simply because Minhyung scolded them, they would just have to be more subtle about their insults.

“It doesn’t have to be a bigger problem, you really think they would talk back to the Fire Prince?” Renjun asked. He knew they wouldn’t talk back, the alphas were smart enough to earn themselves high ranking positions in their respective branches of the military. If they talked back they knew they would be demoted for insulting their future leader, but that wouldn’t stop them from defending themselves.

“They wouldn’t, but I know they would try to make it seem like I’m making a big deal out of nothing,” he replied. 

“Hyuck, you’re not though,” Renjun said softly. Renjun reached up to caress his cheek and Renjun’s thumb softly stroked his cheek. He had the urge to lean into the touch and close his eyes, but instead he let Renjun retract his hand after the shared moment. “In the three week we’ve been here they’ve managed to insult your hair, your bending, the Water Tribe, your marriage, your culture and you as a person.”

“Look Hyuck, I know you’re not happy, hell I’m not even happy and nobody is insulting me, but you don’t have to be miserable here. Please at least consider talking to Prince Minhyung, if not about how you’re being treated, then at least tell him that you crave his touch.” He slapped his hand over Renjun’s mouth.

“Jun, I told you in confidence,” He hissed. He hated the idea of craving Minhyung in any form, it made him feel weak and needy and everything he wasn’t.

“I don’t know why you’re ashamed, you're his omega, he should at least attempt to please you.” He felt a blush to form on his cheeks, he thought of the first night he touched himself to the sound of Minhyung’s moans. It wasn’t an isolated incident, but he secretly hoped they would have moved past that by now. “Not like that you pervert! He only gave you a half bond of course you’re going to be more touch-starved than the average omega.”

“I don’t think he’s very affectionate. He doesn’t like it when his little sister touches him.” He had seen Minhyung jerk away from Princess Yeri, the Princess would whine and he would feel bad, so he would offer her a hug instead. Minhyung would shake his head at the Princesses antics, but wouldn’t make a move to console her, instead letting the Princess cling onto Donghyuck,

“Yeri is adorable, he’s just a party pooper,” Renjun said. Occasionally they were made to babysit Yeri and Minhyung would always act displeased with Yeri’s behavior.

“I know,” he responded with what he didn’t want to admit was fondness in his voice.

“It's okay, you know,” Renjun told him and he wasn’t sure if they were talking about the same thing anymore. “If you like Prince Minhyung, I mean. I know you think It would be easier if you and Prince Minhyung disliked each other, but I mean it when I say you don’t have to be miserable. I’m not saying you have to fall in love with him, especially right now, but give yourself a chance before you try to lock away your heart.”

“Since when did you get so wise?” He teased Renjun, ignoring Renjuns advice for now, he didn’t want to fall in love with the alpha even if he was not his alpha.

“I just want you to be happy, it doesn’t matter with who.” There were many things left unsaid between them, there always had been and it was okay. 

\---

There were only a few things worse than having to sit through the Fire Assembly meeting.

It was being forced to socialize with the omegas of the high ranking officers. Many of them like himself were also being forced to socialize, but the thing was they at least grew up in the Fire Nation and most of them knew each other and were even friends. Although he was always dressed by a sweet Fire Nation servant named Yuna, he at times felt like he wasn’t wearing his clothes correctly. He had no one to compare to, he was after all the Prince Consort, the rest of the omegas weren’t supposed to wear royal armor. They wore delicate robes with intricate designs on them, but they were never to be too elaborate according to what Renjun had found out, apparently it would be offensive to the Royal Family.

He didn’t always have to wear the armor, but he was supposed to for formal events and he let Yuna decide what a formal event meant. And that's how he found himself having tea with the omegas that Minhyung had said were around his age. Most of them were all the mates of noblemen, he had found out that although omegas were allowed to have high ranking positions in the Fire Nation, it was still uncommon.

“How have you been liking the Fire Nation, Prince Donghyuck?” A rather thin girl named Yeji asked him. Yeji was nice, Minhyung had told him she was a firebending prodigy but her family was more traditional and they preferred for her to be a house omega then to allow her to become a fire dancer like she wanted to.

“It’s been a change. I haven’t gotten quite used to the weather here, it's always so warm,” he answered honestly. The Royal Palace had an excess amount of flames around the building, which he thought was stupid because if the Fire Nation had just built the Palace to be more open they wouldn’t need that many torches to light up the place.

“I know, I can’t imagine having to wear your armor all the time,” Eunbin said. She was a pretty girl and as far as he knew she was nonbender, but was part of a small non-bending troop in the Fire Nation Army. He wasn’t sure if they ever saw much action or how exactly they were being utilized, but he had respect for her. “I’m sure Prince Minhyung is worried about your safety but I doubt it’s really necessary if you’re not out in public.”

He nodded in response to let her know he was listening, but he wasn’t sure what even were the protocols for things like dress code and he figured Yuna knew better than him what they were.

“Speaking of which, the people want to see you. You’ve been here a month and you haven’t so much as taken a stroll around the capital.” Felix said. He was the mate of one of the soldiers training to be part of the Royal Guards, he didn’t know much about Felix, but he seemed to be a nice guy. He used to live in a Fire Nation colony and had a different accent from all the people he had met in the Fire Nation capital.

“Prince Minhyung told me he was going to take me on a tour of the capital, but he's been busy lately.” Although Minhyung hadn’t exactly said that, _they_ had been busy lately. The only times he didn’t have to follow around Minhyung like a fool was when he was forced to socialize with the noble omegas or Minhyung was practicing his bending.

“You should come with us someday, we can do a bit of shopping together if you’d like,” Eunbin said, Yeji let out a squeak at Eunbins words and he wondered if this was what regular omegas did for fun, or if it was just what the Fire Nation omegas did.

“That would be nice, but I think my first public appearance should be with Prince Minhyung, after that we can go out together,” he replied. He really didn’t want to, they were nice people, but he really hated being forced to become friends with people and that's what all these meetings felt like. He felt like Minhyung and the Fire Lord were trying to pick his friends for him and it all just felt disingenuous.

“That’s understandable,”Jongho said. He was a quiet guy, he seemed like the type that needed time to open up to strangers. All Donghyuck knew about him was that Jongho liked to play Pai Sho and Donghyuck had never been good at it so he hadn’t tried to play him.

“We’ve been curious,” Yeji said after a particularly long sip of her tea. “How’s Prince Minhyung been treating you.” She gave a suggestive wiggle of her eyebrows and he had to actively keep his face neutral.

“He’s been nice…” He replied after a moment of thinking, he wasn’t going to satisfy her curiosity, mainly because there was nothing really to talk about, Minhyung hadn’t so much as kissed him yet. “He’s not what I expected the Fire Prince to be like.”

“Oh how so?” Eunbin said, curiosity evident in her tone. He wondered if he had made a mistake by opening that particular can of worms.

“The Earth King always made the Fire Nation seem harsh and cruel, and well the Water Tribe didn’t have much to go off of besides that. We weren’t fond of traveling outside the North Pole so it was rare we met a Firebender. I personally hadn’t met one until we met the Fire Lord and the Fire Prince.” He took a sip of his tea, he wondered if it had been the wrong thing to even mention the Earth King. He at least knew they wouldn’t bring up the Earth Prince out of respect for Minhyung, but he didn’t know what exactly was off limits to talk about and he felt like he was walking on thin ice. “I didn’t expect the Fire Prince or the Fire Nation for that matter to be quite nice.”

“That’s good that you at least don’t think we’re mean,” Felix said playfully. He let himself let out a laugh. “I was actually quite surprised when I met you.”

“Really? Why?” He was curious, he had been curious as to what exactly people thought he would be like, he knew Renjun got some intel from Jaemin, but Renjun refused to tell him. 

“Well for one, I wasn’t expecting to see you dressed in Fire Nation clothes, I thought you would have kept your traditional clothes,” Felix said. The rest of the omegas gave some sort of sign of agreement.

“Yeah and we knew your hair was white, but we kind of thought people were just spreading rumors, kind of like they spread the rumors about Prince Minhyung’s hair turning white too.” Yeji also chimed in. He felt a bit of hurt at the confirmation that Minhyung was trying to cover up the rumors of his hair turning white. He wondered what the point of it was, Minhyung had married him to begin with, what difference would it make if he had a few white strands of hair.

“I didn’t realize that was a rumor,” He tried not to sound bitter. “How did that even start?”

“Changbin told me that some of the guys on the flagship had supposedly seen parts of Prince Minhyungs hair look white on the journey back,” Felix offered up. It took him a second to remember who Changbin was, he was Felix’s mate and he offered the group a nod. 

“I had heard that it was some sort of sign from the Moon spirit,” Yeji added. He wondered if he should ask Minhyung what the point of hiding his hair was. It seemed like people already knew or had some kind of idea, he doubted that covering his hair in black ink changed anything.

For now all he could do was laugh at Yeji’s words.

\---

Minhyung had a habit of pacing around their bedroom.

It was a quite annoying habit. After they both had already gotten ready for bed, Minhyung would take the time to walk around the room aimlessly. Minhyung never seemed to notice his eyes staring at him and at times it was quite irritating because he couldn’t fall asleep anymore if Minhyung wasn’t at his side and he would have to wait for Minhyung to finish pacing.

“You should come to bed.” He stopped himself from letting out a sigh. Minhyungs hair was tied back in a low ponytail, Minhyung had already washed the ink out of his hair and he couldn’t hide his hair in that particular style, when he wore the top knot the white pieces could be hidden with skillful manipulation of the hair and he wondered what was the point of the ink if he didn’t need it to cover up the hairs in question. 

The moonlight coming in through the window reflected off of Minhyung’s hair beautifully, almost as if the white strands were glowing. It was the version of Minhyung he liked the best. When he was stripped of his royal title and he was just the Minhyung whose hand he held in the Spirit Oasis, or the Minhyung he had taken his final gondola ride with.

Minhyung was rarely the guy he was when they first met. Minhyung preferred to be the Fire Prince, he preferred to keep a guise of niceness around himself, but Donghyuck knew Minhyung wasn’t nice, at least not in the way Minhyung tried to portray himself. He could feel Minhyungs emotions, it was difficult not to when their bond chose to amplify any and every emotion Minhyung felt and it only made him realize Minhyung was naive rather than nice.

“I will, in a second. I’m thinking,” Minhyung’s voice was quiet, it almost felt like a whisper.

“About what?” He wasn’t particularly curious as to what Minhyung was even thinking about. He just wanted to go to bed.

“How do you deal with it?” Minhyung had approached him and took a seat at the edge of the bed, staring at him.

“I’m not completely sure what you’re talking about,” he replied. Minhyung could be talking about everything and nothing at all, it wouldn’t be right to assume.

“Before I used to get stares, questioning looks because of my eyes. I could tell what their questions were, ‘Is he an illegitimate son’, ‘Is he even a firebender’, ‘Is the Royal Family lying to us?’” Minhyung let out a sigh. “They eventually stopped, not because people were no longer curious, but because my father made an example out of someone who dared question if I was really his son.”

Minhyung let silence permeate the room and he could feel Minhyungs confliction through the bond.

“I got so used to people no longer questioning me that I forgot what it felt like, but now all I get are stares questioning if I should even be the Fire Prince. I get asked what our marriage will mean for the heritage of the Fire Nation. People are against our union and I don’t know how to turn a blind eye,” Minhyung confessed. He hadn’t thought about what any of it would truly mean for their nations and it was naive of him.

“Do they think you married the Omega Prince of the Water Tribe to cover up in case you were to have Waterbender pups?” He asked Minhyung. It was something he hadn’t really thought of til that moment, but it made sense, if the Fire Nation believed Minhyung was an illegitimate child then the easiest thing was to cover it up by marrying him off to a waterbender, but Minhyung couldn’t just marry some random waterbender, it had to be an Omega Prince to even work.

“Yes,” Minhyung let out a breath and he suddenly realized that although Minhyung was sheltered he did have his own hardships. “They don’t buy that the ocean spirit blessed me.”

It made sense the Fire Nation didn’t believe them, even the Water Tribe hadn’t, why would the ocean spirit choose to bless a firebender out of all things, the more he looked at it did feel like a lie, although he felt in gut that it wasn’t no matter how sketchy things seemed.

“The stares you and I get aren’t the same. In the Water Tribe they were always pity stares, I was engaged practically my whole life and people would feel pity that I was the one that had to be engaged for the sake of some alliance that we truly didn’t need.” He remembered the way the kids in his school would look at him when he began to wear this betrothal necklace. For the rest of the omegas their own necklace symbolized love, but for him it was a chain, shackling him to his fate and getting stared at had never felt good. “The worst was from my dad, he asked me once if I wanted him to break off the engagement and how could I reply anything but no? It would endanger the Water Tribe, we had already agreed to it and although it was unlikely the Earth Kingdom would attack us, they would become hostile. It wasn’t like I could simply break off the engagement even if I wanted to.”

“And here?” The look Minhyung gave him wasn’t of pity like the looks he got in the Water Tribe or of promised victory like the Earth Kings, or of disapproval like most of the Fire Nation citizens. It was something different. Something Donghyuck didn’t want to address.

“I don’t think you want to know what your people think of me.” He didn’t mean for his words to sound hateful, but they did. Minhyung’s eyes seemed to glisten and he could feel Minhyungs hurt through the bond, their moment was gone, Minhyung looked away for a second before deciding to go to bed.

That was what Donghyuck had wanted in the first place, so why did he suddenly feel bad?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I now have much respect and appreciation for chapter names, Its actually quite hard to come up with chapter names that are actually meaningful and fit the theme of the chapter. 
> 
> Here we have Donghyuck still not trusting Mark and over analyzing everything Mark does or doesn't do.  
> Donghyuck has gotten settled (kind of) in the Fire Nation and well things are different. There shall be more markhyuck interactions in the next chapter, so stay tuned for that
> 
> Thank you guy for reading! I hope you enjoyed the chapter and continue reading in the future!


	4. Words Hidden in Your Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He sounds like a lot,” Minhyung said, his voice void of emotions.
> 
> "Yeah, he was. He was a weird guy but a lot of people liked him," he said, thinking back on the time Yukhei had fallen off of his polar dog because he acted too familiar with the animal. He missed his polar dog.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally finished finals and was able to actually finish writing this chapter, lol.
> 
> Edit 1/8/21: This chapter and previous chapters have been edited, nothing has changed plot wise although some chapters/scenes are more heavily edited than others.

The air outside the palace felt different then the air inside the palace.

He had roamed the palace for the past weeks and although he was breathing fresh air when he visited the gardens or the turtle duck ponds, when he stepped outside of the palanquin and saw the Fire Nation capital for the first time he felt liberated. Of course he wasn’t actually liberated, he would always be tied to Prince Minhyung, their bond binding them together for the rest of their lives, but it was nice to feel it, even for a second. 

The sun had set and Minhyung had picked an evening where most of the citizens of the crater would be occupied elsewhere, not that the citizen, no matter how important, would dare bother the Fire Prince and his Consort. Most of the nobles that owned a house in the crater didn’t actually live there, only had it as a status symbol and Donghyuck wondered what the point of having an expensive residence was when it was unoccupied most of the year. He guessed it was just a cultural difference between the Water Tribe and the Fire Nation.

There were pups playing in the streets, but the pups paid them no mind. It was probably because they didn’t necessarily look like royalty at the moment. Minhyung had decided to dress more casually, he wasn’t wearing his formal armor, instead he opted for a simple robe. Donghyuck was to be a mirror of his mate and therefore also abandoned the armor. Yuna had picked out a simple tunic, it still held the intricate embroidery that the royal family was known for, but the tunic itself wasn’t too flashy. The neck was a little low for his likely, part of his bite mark was exposed, but he didn’t complain, he didn’t want Yuna to think that he was ashamed of it.

The top half of his hair was tied up into a top knot and the bottom half was let down. Yuna had forgone his coronet and instead had adorn a few chunks of hair with small pieces of jewelry that resembled flames. She had somehow gotten some that looked like a crescent moon and had asked him if he wanted those in his hair as well. He had said no, not sure if he was allowed to wear anything that held a significance to the Water Tribe and he didn’t want people to throw more unkind looks than they already had. Renjun had tagged along under the guise of getting to know the city but was really trying to casually meet up with Jaemin.

“I’m sorry it took me this long to actually bring you out of the palace, you fit in so well that I sometimes forget that you’re not from the Fire Nation,” Minhyung said. He resisted the urge to scoff. He stuck out like a sore thumb, anyone they met would stare at him with disapproving looks and it was obvious he didn’t fit in when every omega in the crater was pale and thin and he wasn’t.

“I guess I adapt quickly,” he replied, not really sure what to talk about. Minhyung had just said they were going to take a stroll around the city and he didn’t really say if they were going to go anything specifically. For all he knew they could just be walking aimlessly and would retire when Minhyung believed they had seen enough.

“You should tell me if you want to do things together,” Minhyung commented. Minhyungs shoulder brushed against his and he felt himself close his eyes briefly at the touch. Minhyung rarely touched him and it always felt like jolts of lighting when they did touch, but Minhyung always seemed largely unaffected and it bothered him for some reason. “It’s just I get so caught up with things around the Palace and we’re always together, that I always forget that we don’t actually do things _together_.”

“I’m not completely sure what there is to do around here,” he stated, his voice a little uncertain.

“There’s a lot!” Minhyung let out enthusiastically. “We could go to the harbor and fish, although I’ve never had any luck catching anything, but Johnny, my guard, always catches the largest fish. We could go see a play, there's also a few restaurants that I like around the edge of the crater. I don’t know if you like shopping, but that’s always an option, although if you don’t you can always ask the errand boy for anything you need. We could watch a fireball game, I sometimes like to play, but the kids are really ruthless sometimes. We could do something like yoga, although that's more of a Yeri thing, I’ve never been into it-” Minhyung took a look at him and stopped. “Oh, I didn’t realize I was rambling. I didn’t mean to overwhelm you.”

“It’s okay,” he hadn’t minded Minhyung's sudden new found (one sided) conversational skills. Sometimes he craved to just hear Minhyung talk for hours, it soothed him in a weird way. “It seems like you’ll have to organize our dates because I won’t remember any of that.”

“Our dates?” Minhyung’s voice sounded higher than it usually was and he wondered if Minhyung was embarrassed. Cute. 

“Yeah? I thought that's what this was.” He kept his tone light, not wanting Minhyung to think he was mad. He let out a playful laugh and he could practically feel the butterflies in his stomach, he wasn’t sure anymore if it was his or Mark’s feelings. Their feelings had melted into each other and they were indistinguishable in moments like these, where they were close and some of the awkwardness between them had melted.

“It is, I just was kind of shocked that you called it that,” Minhyung said, a blush rested high up on Minhyungs cheeks. 

“We’re mates, I don’t know why you’re blushing about a date,” he teased. He didn’t take Minhyung the type to be flustered at the thought of a date, but then again he had no idea what Minhyung’s life had been like before he had shown up at the gates of the Water Tribe.

“I haven’t really…” Minhyung trailed off.

“Dated?” Minhyung gave a slight nod. He itched to ask Minhyung what he had been curious to know since the night they met, _had Minhyung known his whole life he was going to marry him? “It’s okay I haven’t really either_.”

Questions were swimming in Minhyungs eyes, but it was unlikely Minhyung would ask them, at least not here where anyone could hear his replies.

“I was thinking we can go get tea, my cousin runs a nice tea shop,” Minhyung said, changing the subject. He raised an eyebrow at Minhyungs suggestion, he didn’t take Minhyung as the type to like tea. Minhyung seemed to mistake his shock for apprehension and quickly said, “Is that weird? Meeting my cousin?”

“No, I was just kind of surprised that you liked tea,” he replied.

“Oh,” Minhyung played with his hand nervously. “I’m not like one of those people that are like super into tea, but my cousin keeps sending me letters telling me to bring you over so you can taste his White Dragon Tea. It comes from the Earth Kingdom, you might have tried it before.”

Minhyung tried to look casual as he mentioned the Earth Kingdom, but he knew Minhyung was anything but. The alpha always emitted a strange emotion akin to jealousy when the Earth Kingdom was mentioned, but he knew it couldn’t be it.

“My father wasn’t too fond of tea, so the Earth King only ever made White Jade for us once. My brother Mingyu turned out to be allergic and almost died. I think that may have been the last time I drank tea now that I think about it,” He replied. The Water Tribe wasn’t fond of teas and he didn’t mind them but he didn’t crave tea.

“Do you miss them? Your family?” Minhyung looked apologetic and for a second it made him irritated. 

“I was only close with my brother Mingyu. Namjoon and Taehyung weren’t always around, but Mingyu is the closest to my age and he always made sure that he played with me.” he paused thinking about the times Mingyu would make snowman with him and would sneak him out to go sledding in the tundra. He missed Mingyu and he could only hope Mingyu missed him too. “I love my other brothers but they were always afraid to get too close. My dad was always busy, he didn’t have time to coddle me, and my mom, well she always tried to make me happy.”

“It can’t be easy being away from them,” Minhyung replied. It was agitating that everyone kept saying that to him, they didn’t know what it felt like to be expected to uproot their entire life because some spirit decided what his life would hold. But as much as it agitated him, he knew most of the people asking weren’t doing it out of malice, so he tried not to get too mad.

“It’s not, but I like it here too.” And if Minhyung noticed the lie, he didn’t voice it.

\---

“You must be Prince Donghyuck,” The man approaching them said. The man's voice was soft and small, his face was childlike in nature and if the man wasn’t freakishly tall he would have guessed him to be younger than himself. 

“This is my cousin Jungwoo, he’s the owner of the shop,” Minhyung introduced him, Jungwoo eyed his hand before shaking his head and offering a wave instead.

“I love your hair! The rumors don’t do you justice, you’re so pretty!” Jungwoo exclaimed.

“Is that what people are saying about me?” he asked. It was strange, people had never described him as pretty in the Water Tribe and he wondered if it was just because he didn’t have many people that he could talk to freely. He didn’t feel ugly, but compliments were few and far in between for him. He was only really ever complimented for his pliant behavior.

“Of course, the omegas are jealous of your beauty and the alphas are jealous of your mate,” Jungwoo threw a glance at Minhyung, he could feel the alphas' anger through their bond, it was kinda cute.

“Jungwoo quit flirting with my mate.” Minhyungs eyes were pointed and Jungwoo playfully hit Minhyung's shoulder.

“Calm down Minhyung,” Jungwoo’s eyes were playful.

“Prince Minhyung,” Minhyung said through his teeth.

“Are you showing off for Prince Donghyuck? You never cared for the title before,” Jungwoo stated matter of factly. Minhyung looked like he wanted to say a lot more than what he was allowed to say and it was funny, the way Minhyungs lips grew tight and his eyes were glossed in something he couldn’t place yet.

“ _Jungwoo_ ,” Minhyung warned.

“ _Prince Jungwoo_. Don’t forget I am also a Prince just because _your father_ is Fire Lord,” Jungwoo said, but there was no malice in Jungwoo’s voice. “Anyway Prince Donghyuck, what's your favorite tea?”

“I’ve only had White Jade and Chi-enhancing tea,” he replied and Jungwoo let out a hum. He’d only had the Chi-enhancing tea by accident when the Earth King confused his teacup with his fathers and it had been a mess. The water around him began to glow and his father had shut him in his room fearing he would start waterbending and the omegas would ‘get ideas’. He didn’t start waterbending, but it was still a trippy experience nonetheless.

“Earth Kingdom rarities I see. Do you like trying new things?” Jungwoo asked. He really didn’t, things didn’t really change in the Water Tribe, so he rarely had the chance to try anything new, but it would be rude to say no to Jungwoo.

“Sure!” he said, trying to mask his hesitation by sounding enthusiastic. 

“I’ve been experimenting with tapioca balls, Minhyung here didn’t like my last trial, but Minhyung doesn’t have good taste in teas, so he isn’t to be trusted.”

“You say you like all your experiments just because you made them,” Minhyung mumbled.

“Speak up Minhyung, a prince doesn’t mumble,” Jungwoo teased before replying. “That's true, but Woojin liked my White Dragon Tapioca Tea and I trust him more than you.”

“Woojin is in love with you so of course he’d like your tea,” Minhyung threw back. It made him curious as to who Woojin was and if he’d ever meet him.

“He is not! Stop telling Prince Donghyuck lies.” Jungwoo let out a huff, “I realized that Tapioca Tea tasted better cold, I served it hot for Minhyung and I think that's why he didn’t like it.”

“Just make him regular White Dragon tea, I don’t want Prince Donghyuck to get the wrong idea of your tea making abilities.” Minhyung grumbled and Jungwoo smiled at Minhyungs words.

“Coming right up Your Highness.” The last part sounded like a joke and Minhyung looked like he was fuming again as Jungwoo disappeared into what he could only assume to be the kitchen.

“I'm sorry about him,” Minhyung said, turning towards him. “He gets on my nerves, but he's also like my brother. He used to live in the palace too, but after my uncle died he kind of just didn’t want anything to do with being royalty or the military. My dad let him move out and he’s been running his tea shop ever since.”

“Is he an alpha?” He questioned, keeping his voice low, not wanting Jungwoo to know he asked, he wasn’t really any of his business, but he was curious.

“Yeah, he is. It’s hard to tell, he’s never had a smell so we all kind of just thought he was beta until he reached puberty. He’s a really good firebender, maybe even better than me, a lot of the nobles thought that he was going to challenge me for my position as Crown Prince, but even at his prime he never wanted to be Fire Lord.”

“Minhyung you’re acting like I'm 80 and can’t even firebend anymore. I could still kick your flat ass,” Jungwoo came out of the kitchen holding a tray.

“Jungwoo!” Minhyung barked out.

“ _Prince Jungwoo_ ,” Jungwoo teased. “At Minhyung's request I brought you White Dragon tea and a tart pie. And for my guinea pig I brought a Pearl Watermelon Tea.”

“You should have just gotten me regular Watermelon juice.” Minhyung mumbled.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Jungwoo smiled, not reprimanding Minhyung for mumbling this time. “I’m still experimenting with the name, so don’t recommend it to your friends yet.”

“I won’t,” Minhyung grunted out.

“I’ll leave you to love birds alone, I have other customers,” Jungwoo said, looking in Renjun and Jaemin’s direction.

“Are they a thing?” Minhyung asked, looking at where Jungwoo had headed off to.

“No idea, Renjun had been acting coy and doesn’t want to tell me any details.” He answered, admittingly a little bit bitter. It was his only chance to witness a beautiful love story and Renjun didn’t want to share.

“Are you guys good friends?” Minhyung asked curiously.

“He’s been my assistant since we were little. He was always meant to be a life long partner and I guess it's easier if we’re friends.” He replied.

“I get that in a sense, my assistant Jeno has been with me for a long time and at some point I just stop thinking of him as my assistant and more of a brother I guess.” Minhyung shared. “He’s been courting a beta, Yeeun, I believe. I feel like I’m more excited than him sometimes.”

“Yeah I know the feeling,” he said, smiling at his tea. “Your cousin’s tea is really good.”

“Yeah, it is when he gets it right. When we were little he almost killed me!” Minhyung exclaimed. “His dad used to travel a lot and he would always bring back herbs that he had heard were good for tea making. And well his dad brought some White Jade thinking it was White Dragon and well Jungwoo almost killed us, because he didn’t know how to brew it properly! Luckily our healer knew how to cure us.”

“Was the tea at least worth dying for?” He asked, Mingyu had said it was when he had an allergic reaction.

“No! That was the worst part, like if it was at least good I would have been fine dying but it was so bitter,” Minhyung said, shuddering at the thought.

“Does he know how to brew it now?” He asked.

“Allegedly but I’m not willing to try it, It just brings back bad memories,” Minhyung said, scrunching his nose. It was cute, at least as cute as an alpha could be. 

"How do you trust him with the rest of his crazy inventions?" Jungwoo had called Minhyung his guinea pig and he wondered how often Minhyung tested Jungwoos new recipes.

"He actually knows what he's doing now. Before he just liked tea but he took an apprenticeship under a tea maker is now educated on how to brew tea properly."

"It sounds like you really love him," he said, feeling the fondness Minhyung held for Jungwoo through the bond and Donghyuck felt oddly reminded of how he felt for his own brother Mingyu.

"Yeah, he's a good guy," the fondness was clear in Minhyungs eyes and it made him wonder if Minhyung looked like that when he talked about him.

\---

"Why are we in the middle of a field?" Minhyung had suggested they go outside the crater after they left the tea shop. Minhyungs guard, Johnny, had seemed hesitant, not keen on the idea of only having two royal guards and a handful of servants as their protection. Minhyung had insisted so Johnny gave in quickly.

"We're stargazing!" Minhyung giggled. “Me and my cousin used to sneak out and come here to stargaze in the summer when we were kids.”

“It's not summer though,” he cocked his head and Minhyung smiled and looked at the night sky.

“It’s not which makes it better,” Minhyung said, Minhyung didn’t sound like he would be elaborating, so he laid down on the blanket that Johnny had somehow conjured up. Minhyung followed suit and they were both lying down. They were close, but their shoulders weren’t touching and he wondered if he should move closer just so their shoulders _did_ touch.

“I can’t tell the constellation apart so I’m not the best stargazing partner, but it can be quite romantic,” Minhyung said nonchalantly and he couldn’t help but furrow his eyebrows even though Minhyung couldn’t see him.

“You used to do romantic things with Jungwoo?” He teased Minhyung and he could feel the telltale signs of Minhyung blushing. 

“You’re making it weird,” Minhyung said, slightly mortified. “I’ve just heard people say it was romantic.”

“I’m kidding Minhyung,” he said, keeping his tone light. “What’s your favorite constellation?”

“Leo! It's my zodiac sign!” Minhyung said, he suddenly had the urge to laugh at Minhyung. 

“You’re so basic!” he teased. Minhyung's response made him think the alpha really didn’t know much about astrology, he didn’t know much either but at least his favorite constellation wasn’t a zodiac sign.

“Really? What’s yours then?” Minhyung asked, Minhyung turned his head to look at Donghyuck and they looked each other in the eyes. Minhyung had a natural sparkle to his eye that made his breath hitch everytime they made eye contact, at times he felt like if he really looked into the alphas eye, he could see galaxies.

“Cepheus, we’re around the equator, so we may or may not be able to see it from here.” He looked up briefly and tried to find it. The sky looked different, and all he could see were stars and couldn’t easily recognize any of the constellations that he had grown accustomed to in the North Pole. “The best time to see it is in November, so that might be why I can’t find it.”

“We can always come back in November and try again,” Minhyung offered. They could, but it was also unlikely Minhyung would remember to come back in November. Things like constellations felt unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but it served him as a reminder truly how far away from home he was. 

“We can,” he replied, knowing regardless the choice wasn’t his. He wasn’t allowed to leave the palace without Minhyungs permission and he would only be able to travel outside the crater with Minhyung at his side, they’d only be back if Minhyung wanted to come back.

“Tell me a story,” Minhyung requested after a comfortable period of silence.

“What kind of story?” He asked.

“Tell me about Prince Yukhei,” Minhyung said, the alpha kept his eyes on the night sky and he couldn’t really feel much coming off of Minhyung through their bond. It was hard to gauge how exactly Minhyung felt about Prince Yukhei and his previous engagement, but Minhyung asked and it would be more upsetting for him to refuse to speak about the Earth Prince.

“Prince Yukhei was different, to the say the least. I only really met Prince Yukhei and his dad so I can’t tell you if it's an Earth Kingdom quality, but he was really goofy and loved to make people laugh. In the capital of the Northern Water Tribe we don’t have much snow, it’s mostly ice, because we don’t really have much practical use for snow, it’s not easy to bend or really effective for bending for that matter. We only have uses for ice and water so that’s all we really have. We also don’t have land underneath the North Pole, it’s made entirely out of ice and earthbenders can’t really bend unless they bring their own source of ‘earth.’

“Prince Yukhei had been telling me for a while that he wanted to show me his bending skills. So one day he showed up with a massive rock and we were all quite confused as to why he decided to haul a rock to the North Pole. He thought it would be a good idea to challenge my brother Namjoon to a duel. And well, Yukhei kind of thought it would be a friendly kind of challenge but my brother was never really one to go easy on anyone.

"Prince Yukhei also thought it would be a good idea to have the duel in the tundra, and well to say the least it wasn’t. Even skilled waterbenders have a hard time bending in the tundra and well Prince Yukhei almost got himself killed. He wasn’t even able to move the rock and he also wasn’t properly dressed for the tundra even though we warned him and well he got severe frostbite. The healers had to use water from the Spirit Oasis because it was that bad.”

“He sounds like a lot,” Minhyung said, his voice void of emotions.

"Yeah, he was. He was a weird guy but a lot of people liked him," he said, thinking back on the time Yukhei had fallen off of his polar dog because he acted too familiar with the animal. He missed his polar dog. 

"Did you? Like him I mean," Minhyung asked, an unasked question lingering in the air.

"I did, in the sense that he was a nice guy and he was a good friend but I didn't like him romantically," he replied, answering only what he had been asked. 

Minhyung looked like he wanted to ask him something, he already knew what it was, they both knew what it was, but Minhyung wouldn’t ask, not now, probably not ever, with the way Minhyung choose to hide his emotions, a pointless action when Donghyuck knew what Minhyung felt. But was it truly pointless? Donghyuck hid his emotions too, but he had no idea if Minhyung could feel them.

“Donghyuck?” Minhyung whispered, Minhyungs eyes on his lips and Minhyungs light breath fanning out on his face. It was the first time Minhyung had used his name without formalities and it sent shivers down his spine.

“Yeah,” he replied equally as quiet, he yearned to lean into Minhyung, to feel Minhyung's warmth on his skin and Minhyungs lips on his own.

“Can I kiss you?” Minhyung asked, it was a simple question but it held so many meanings and suddenly it didn’t matter if people were there, it didn’t matter that Minhyung was the Fire Prince. The only thing that mattered was that Minhyung was his alpha and his alpha wanted to kiss him.

Donghyuck expected Minhyung to be soft, hesitant and inexperienced, but he wasn’t. Instead Minhyung hovered over him for a second, the alpha's eyes raking his face, before leaning down to kiss him. Minhyung kissed like he expected a firebender to kiss, all fervour, no hint of the softness Minhyung typically held in his demeanor and he couldn’t help but pull Minhyung in closer and Minhyung put his knees on either side of him and pressed his torso flush against Donghyuck.

He wrapped his arms around Minhyung's neck and Minhyung smiled into the kiss and he couldn’t help but feel turned on by the gesture. He subconsciously rolled his hips slightly and he felt a growl rumble in Minhyungs chest as Minhyung detached himself and started planting kisses down the side of his neck until Minhyung reached his bite mark and he couldn’t help but let out a whimper when Minhyung started to suck on the bite mark.

The feeling was a lot and not enough at the same time, it had been weeks of only slightly brushing against each other. Of Minhyung trying to be polite by giving him enough space, Minhyung didn't want to force him to do anything and it was equally as relieving as it was frustrating. 

“Minhyung you should stop,” he whispered, admittingly a little reluctant. His omega whined at the loss of contact and he felt the familiar sense of loneliness. 

“Was that okay?” Minhyung asked, his lips looking a little swollen.

“Yeah, it was alot for today though,” he said, trying not to reveal too much, he didn’t want Minhyung to know how much he had enjoyed it.

“We should head back it’s late,” Minhyung said after they had stared at each other for a while and Minhyungs eyes had lingered on his lips too long to be deemed friendly, but they weren’t meant to be friendly with each other.

By the time they made it back to the palace, they were back to being awkward with each other and he couldn’t help but think that the kiss had just been a bad idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The amount of research I did on tea in the avatar world is actually insane. Jungwoo is 100% inspired by Uncle Iroh and I just felt like Jungwoo fit the vibes of Minhyungs weird cousin that likes to brew tea. Iroh basically invented bubble tea in the avatar world and well here we have Jungwoo experimenting with tapioca balls. In case any of you were wondering, I made up fireball and I imagined it to be basically soccer but with the ball on fire, Hence the name.
> 
> Disclaimer, I have very little knowledge about astrology so if I fucked it up, ah well, my bad, hope you didn’t cringe too hard. I tried to do some research but the world wide web was actually very unhelpful, (or my research skills are trash).
> 
> As always, thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and continue reading in the future!


	5. How to Train Your Dragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I want you to meet my dragon,” Minhyung said lightly, pulling on his hand.
> 
> “Your what?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly I'm just writing awkward!Mark and awkward!Donghyuck going on dates at this point.
> 
> Edit 1/8/21: This chapter and previous chapters have been edited, nothing has changed plot wise although some chapters/scenes are more heavily edited than others.

“I want you to meet my dragon,” Minhyung said lightly, pulling on his hand.

“Your what?” He questioned. It was really the last thing that he had expected Minhyung to say when he approached him. It was a little out of the blue and he wondered why Minhyung suddenly wanted him to meet his dragon.

“My dragon, don’t you remember? I told you my dragon laid an egg and you said you wanted to meet my dragon first before deciding if you wanted her egg,” Minhyung said with his eyebrows slightly furrowed and Donghyuck felt slightly hesitant, what if the dragon didn’t like him, or worse what if the dragon ate him?

“I don’t know, aren’t dragons supposed to be for firebending masters?” He asked. When they were on the gondola he hadn’t expected Minhyung to follow through and give him the dragon egg, he thought it had just been Minhyung being nice. 

“Not necessarily, they’re companions, it just so happens firebending masters often have them as companions,” Minhyung replied, giving another tug on Donghyuck’s hand. “Come on, it’ll be fun, Nessie is really nice.”

He let himself be pulled by Minhyung, although he was hesitant. He had been having a peaceful afternoon, he was sitting by the turtle dove pond and was enjoying the sun and a good book. Minhyung had given him access to the Palace’s library and he had been meaning to check it out to find a book to read, but hadn’t had the time before, but today they had been free. He hadn’t expected to see Minhyung today, Minhyung usually spent his free time bending or meeting his friends. Minhyung had kind of invited him to meet his friends once, but he had evaded the invitation, he didn’t know much about Minhyung group of friends, but he suspected they were all alphas and he wasn’t too keen on meeting them either way. 

Minhyung intertwined their hands and he felt chills run up his spine. They hadn’t held hands since the wedding and even then it was because it was expected of them. It was a different feeling for Minhyung to hold his hand because the alpha wanted to, for no reason at all. 

“Where are we going?” He asked, Minhyung was weaving through the Palace’s hallways and although he had been there a few months, he still wasn’t too familiar with the palace and he was unsure of where they were actually heading.

“The stables,” Minhyung replied, excitement laced in his voice.

“You keep your dragon with the ostrich horses?” He asked, hoping it didn’t sound like he was judging. 

“Yes and no. They’re in the same area but Nessie is free to fly around as she pleases.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” He asked, Minhyung let out a laugh.

“If your dragon isn’t trained, yes, but Nessie is a domestic dragon she wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Minhyung reassured him but it still left him a bit uneasy.

They reached what he could only assume was the area where the livestock were kept, he’d never been to this part of the palace. Minhyung had slowed down but hadn’t let go of his hand and he felt the bond tingle between them.

“She must be asleep, usually she’d come running if she so much as sensed me nearby,” Minhyung said. Coincidentally, at the exact moment Minhyung finished talking, he heard a loud growl and he turned around to see a large green dragon running toward them. If he wasn’t scared for his life he’d find the sight funny. He took the chance to hide behind Minhyung and the dragon came to a halt before crashing into them and the dragon licked Minhyung’s cheek.

“Hi Nessie, long time no see,” Minhyung cooed as he petted the dragon's head and Donghyuck looked at the sight with wide eyes. The dragon closed her eyes and let out what Donghyuck could only describe as a purr, it was loud and it made his heart race. “Nessie met Prince Donghyuck.”

The dragon opened her eyes and sniffed the air around them before her eyes landed on Donghyuck and Donghyuck let out a squeak. He was still hiding behind Minhyung and Minhyung let out a chuckle at the sound of the squeak.

“Come on, she won’t bite,” Minhyung teased. He let out a deep breath and he couldn’t help but think of Yukhei. Yukhei would have jumped at an opportunity to meet a dragon and here he was, scared to even be in the direct line of fire. He let out a deep breath and took a step away from Minhyung, the dragon's eyes followed him and he tried to keep eye contact and not make any sudden movements. 

Minhyung should have given him a lesson on dragon etiquette before introducing him to the dragon. He could feel Minhyungs amusement and he suddenly felt like cursing the alpha before deciding it wouldn’t be a good idea given the dragon seemed to be very fond of his mate.

He slowly held out his hand and the dragon followed the moment of his hand and seemed to tilt her head slightly, Minhyung whispered out “it’s okay,” and he wasn’t sure if he was talking to the dragon or him, but it served as an encouragement that he at least wasn’t doing anything too bad. The dragon seemed to move her head forward slightly and he reached out his hand to touch the dragon's head and she leaned into the touch. The dragon's scales felt different then what he was expecting, he thought they would be rough and instead they felt smooth and almost like leather.

“She likes it when you pet her ears,” Minhyung said, the dragon looked at Minhyung when he spoke and she seemed to nod her head in agreement. He reached up to pet the dragon's ears and the dragon began to purr again, it was sort of endearing in a weird way, he wasn’t sure anymore if it was his own feelings or Minhyungs bleeding through, but he didn’t feel scared of the animal.

“I think she likes you,” Minhyung said, and he could practically hear the happiness in his voice. “Do you want to go for a ride?”

“A ride?” he repeated. 

“Yeah, she seems to like you, so you shouldn’t be worried about her throwing you off or anything like that,” Minhyung tried to reassure him, but it made him nervous. Dragons weren’t rumored to be nice and sure Minhyung’s dragon appeared to be nice but that was probably only because the dragon had been Minhyung’s dragon her whole life. “Don’t be nervous, she’s nice.”

It was as if Minhyung had read his mind and sometimes it felt like the alpha could, but all he could do was nod even though he was hesitant.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Minhyung assured him. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, he was just wary and it felt like a bad idea to ride the dragon.

“It’s fine, if I get hurt, I’ll just blame you,” he said and Minhyung chuckled.

“Nessie, sit,” Minhyung ordered. The dragon followed the order and it was a bit surprising. “We’re going to take Donghyuck on a ride, I need you to be on your best behavior.”

The dragon let out what he could only say was the equivalent of a dog's bark in response to Minhyung’s words. It sounded like a mix of a growl, bark and purr all at the same time. He had no idea if it was assurement of the dragon's best behavior or a sign of the dragon's contempt but judging from Minhyungs ever growing smile, he could only assume it was the former.

“I’ll get on first and then I’ll help you up if you need help,” Minhyung said and the alpha got on in one quick stride and held out his hand for Donghyuck once he was on the dragon. Donghyuck considered ignoring the offer but decided against it, he didn’t want to look like a fool. He instead grabbed Minhyungs hand and Minhyung more or less pulled him up. It felt oddly like sitting on his polar dog even though the dragon was much more massive. “She says she's offended that you compared her to a dog.”

“You can read her mind?!” He exclaimed, there was no way Minhyung would have been able to just guess that that was what she was thinking. Did that also mean that Minhyung could read his mind?

“No,” Minhyung laughed. “But she can communicate using her mind. She can hear your thoughts but she’s only ever actually talked to me though, I don’t know if she can do it with you.”

‘ _I can_ ,’ the dragon said and it was a weird feeling to hear the dragon's voice in his mind. He didn’t expect the dragon to sound like a woman, well he didn’t exactly have an expectation as to what a dragon's voice would sound like. The sudden invasion of his mind was a little bit too much, Minhyung should have at least warned him the dragon could hear his thoughts.

“I probably should have told you,” Minhyung said apologetically. “I thought it would be a nice surprise, I just didn’t realize that it probably wasn’t.”

“It’s okay, I was just a bit in shock,” he replied. He’d read about dragons, he had read about how they were the first firebenders and they had first bestowed the gift of firebending onto the Fire Nation Royal Family. But he had never read about the dragons being able to read their minds.

“Nessie, is special. Not all dragons can read minds, in fact it's quite rare, only her bloodline has been known to do it and not many know that they can,” Minhyung told him.

It made sense when he thought of it, the Fire Lord was always known to have a green dragon companion and only the Royal Family was allowed to have one in general, they were extremely rare unlike the blue and the red dragon. The white dragon had gone extinct a long time ago when wolves had slayed dragons for sport in hopes of earning the title ‘Dragon’ added to their name. Fire Lord Jaewon had outlawed dragon slaying when the news of the last white dragon being killed was heard.

“I’ve never heard of it, I didn’t even know it was possible,” he said and Minhyung let out a hum.

“Yeah it's usually a shock when I tell people.” Minhyung cleared his throat and changed the topic, “Hold on tight, I don’t want you falling off and I don’t know how to airbend.” 

“Very funny,” he rolled his eyes even though Minhyung couldn’t see it.

“Maybe, but you’re sitting like a foot behind me and I can’t have my mate dying on me,” Minhyung said. Minhyung had been calling him his mate every chance he got and it never failed to make the omegas heartthrob.

He scooted closer to Minhyung and wrapped his arms loosely around Minhyungs waist, Minhyung chuckled before pulling him closer. “I told you to hold on tight.” It was more of a whisper than anything and he could hear the amusement in Minhyungs voice.

“Yeah, yeah, just get on with it,” he said. Minhyung turned his head back around and suddenly they weren’t on the ground anymore.

The dragon was flapping its wings. Their ascent wasn’t fast but it still made his heart race. He hadn’t been afraid of height before but he had also never been on a flying animal. He felt oddly heavy and scared of the dragon suddenly falling out of the sky.

“Are you okay?” Minhyung said after a while of the dragon hovering in the air. “We can go back down if you’re scared.”

“I’m just getting used to the feeling,” he replied. The feeling reminded him a bit of the first time he got on a boat.

“I find it feels better if we’re actually flying, it doesn’t feel as ominous,” Minhyung suggested.

“Okay, lets fly then,” he breathed out. As soon as the words left his mouth the dragon began to soar through the air. They weren’t moving too fast but quick enough where he didn’t feel as heavy sitting on the dragon. His grip was still tight around Minhyung, tighter then he probably needed it to be, but it made him feel assured.

They were flying in circles around the crater, if he focused he could easily see the Palace, it was by far the tallest structure and in the heart of the city. He saw bodies of water that he didn’t even know existed in the crater, he wondered if he should ask Minhyung about those later. Although Minhyung would probably suggest he waterbend if he asked and he wasn’t sure how he’d avoid the topic. It was easy to avoid with everyone else, but he always felt compelled to answer anything Minhyung asked him truthfully, he wasn’t exactly sure why.

He recognized the harbor, at least he thought that was it. It was the only place he had actually been able to see on the day he first got to the Fire Nation.

“Do you want to see anything in particular?” Minhyung asked loudly over the sound of the wind rushing past them.

“Whatever is fine, I don't know much of the surrounding area.” His head was buried in Minhyungs shoulder, he was sure his voice sounded muffled, but Minhyung didn’t seem to mind.

“I can take you to a lot of places, but I think they’d require more planning though,” Minhyung sounded apologetic. 

“Let’s just go to Harbor City, I didn’t get to see much of the city last time,” he replied.

“Are you sure? We don’t have any guards,” Minhyung said. He wasn’t sure if it was risky, he didn’t know exactly how the Fire Nation's citizens felt about the Royal Family, but if Minhyung was even considering it he was sure it just meant that it couldn’t be too dangerous.

“I’m sure they won’t dare attack the Fire Prince and his consort,” he replied. He could feel Minhyung unease but he chose not to say anything, if it was a bad idea he was sure Minhyung would say something.

“Okay,” Minhyung replied and they approached the Harbor instead of the city. He didn’t comment, at the end of the day Minhyung probably knew better than him what to do. They landed by a watchtower and a few soldiers ran up to them and they bowed once they were close enough.

“Your Highness, we didn’t expect you today,” one of them said, the soldier was out of breath and they looked surprised at their appearance.

“Prince Donghyuck wanted to see Harbor City, it was a bit spontaneous if I do say so myself,” Minhyung commented and the other two threw a glance at him.

“How can we help you, Your Highness?” One of the other two guards said.

“Watch Nessie for me,” Minhyung climbed off the dragon and offered him a hand, he was aware of the eyes on him and he felt self conscious as he got off.

“Whatever you want, Your Highness,” The first one replied, they all kept staring at him and shifted his weight under their gaze.

“Don’t try anything funny with her, she won’t hesitate to burn you to a crisp,” Minhyung said, not a hint of humor in his voice and soldiers visibly gulped.

“No problem, Your Highness. She’ll be treated very well,” The first one replied.

“Should we feed her?” The third one asked.

“We won’t be long,” He replied and the soldiers looked at him in shock. He wondered if it was customary for the Prince Consort to speak to commoners or if they just didn’t expect him to do it.

Minhyung gave the dragon a few pets in the head and then led him up the slope to the city. They didn’t hold hands but their shoulders brushed up against each other, it was nice.

“They mostly sell weapons and metals in the city. I don’t know if that's something you’re into, but they can be fun to look at even if you’re not,” Minhyung informed him.

“Do you like weapons?” He asked and Minhyung shrugged.

“My father thinks it's important to know how to defend yourself without firebending, says we don’t know if there will ever be a time when we can’t firebend,” Minhyung kicked a few rocks and he wondered if the topic upset him.

“He’s a smart man,” he replied.

“Yeah, he is,” Minhyung said looking away. “It was a pain growing up though, I always wanted to firebend and I would get so jealous of Jungwoo, because his dad didn’t care about the whole knowing non-bending combat.”

“That sucks,” he replied, he had never been jealous of his brothers bending but he had been jealous of their freedom and it always sucked that his oldest brothers never made exceptions for him like Mingyu tried to.

“Yeah, but enough of that, what do you want to see first? We don’t sell anything too dangerous, mostly knives. We can look at the metals too, there's a nice metalbender that makes nice jewelry out of different metals, there's also a fortuneteller, although I don’t think his fortunes are worth it.”

“Have you gotten your fortune told?” He asked, they didn’t have fortunetellers in the North Pole but it sounded interesting.

“Yeah, he just gave me a generic fortune and asked me if Johnny was single,” Minhyung said.

“Johnny your guard?” He asked for clarification. Johnny was attractive, but he wouldn’t exactly be the first alpha he would ask about being single, although he had only seen Johnny with his helmet on so he wasn’t exactly sure what he looked like without it.

“Yeah, he’s quite popular with the omegas, with any wolf really. His father was a nobleman who used to live in the crater, he and I grew up together before he joined the military and became my guard,” Minhyung supplied. It was interesting, he hadn’t realized Johnny was actually Minhyungs friend.

“Wait, how old is the fortune teller then?” The fortuneteller had to be young if he was hitting on Johnny.

“I don’t know, he looked about Johnny’s age when I met him, so like around 22 or 23 now.”

“Why did you think someone so young would give you an accurate fortune?” He asked, he had always imagined fortune tellers to be old omegas. 

“Well if you have the gift, it doesn’t matter how young you are,” Minhyung reasoned.

“True but you should have known it was a sham,” he commented.

“Yeah, it was pretty generic so he could honestly tell everyone the same fortune,” Minhyung replied. “We could still go to see if he got any better.”

He took a second to think, it didn’t sound like it would be promising at least not with the way Minhyung was making it out to be, but it was interesting. In the North Pole they only had prophets and even the prophets' predictions weren’t the most detailed. Oftentimes they were extremely vague and happened to fit because of how vague they were.

“It sounds interesting,” he said simply and Minhyung nodded.

\---

“Ah Minhyung you’re back,” the omega said, he raised an eyebrow at the omegas' informal way of speaking but didn’t question it. If Minhyung had a problem, he was sure the alpha would voice it himself.

“Not for another one of your bad fortunes,” Minhyung said, sounding a bit rude.

“It wasn’t bad, it became true didn’t it?” the omega wiggled his eyebrows. The fortuneteller was a short and thin omega. His hair was cut short and he was wearing grey clothing, was that a thing now?

“Anybody that knows who I am could have said the same thing,” Minhyung replied.

“Yeah but not everyone could have been sure it would have happened,” the omega replied. “I wouldn’t have risked getting skinned alive by the Fire Prince just to earn a quick Yuan or two.”

“Perhaps, but I’m not here to get my fortune read,” Minhyung said. “Prince Donghyuck would like to test your skills out himself.”

“Ah, I’ve been waiting for you to come, Your Highness,” the omega said, shifting his gaze to Donghyuck. “Minhyung was rude and didn’t introduce us, I’m Chittaphon, but you can call me Ten.”

Ten bowed to him and he bowed back, although not as deep, Ten seemed to be taken back by the action.

“Shoo, Minhyung. I can’t read Prince Donghyucks fortune with you in the room,” Ten said and Minhyung mumbled but didn’t protest as he walked back out and closed the door behind him. “What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know, what kind of fortune do you tell?” He asked. Ten led him to a table with a fire pit in the middle, Ten sat down and Donghyuck took the chair across from Ten.

“People usually ask me about who they’ll mate with, but I don’t think that would be of use to you,” Ten gave a pointed look at his wedding band. “Anything you want to know?”

“I’ve been told a few things about my destiny, I wanted to know your take on it,” he wasn’t particularly curious but he also didn’t really have anything else to ask Ten.

“I was wondering if that’s what you’d ask,” Ten said, Ten handed him a box of matches. “I need you to light a fire.” 

He did as he was told and Ten studied the fire before telling him, “You’re a reserved guy that I can tell from just looking at you, your reserved nature isn’t necessarily your true personality though, am I right.”

“I don’t know,” he replied truthfully.

“That’s okay, you have time to figure it out,” Ten reassured him. “Grab one of those bones to your right and throw it in the fire.”

“Does it matter which one,” he said, a bit hesitant, they all looked to be about the same.

“Yes and no, don’t think about it too much, just pick the one you’re gravitating towards and throw it in the fire,” Ten replied and he followed Ten’s direction. At first nothing happened when he threw the bone in the fire, but after a second a big flame flashed before it quickly calmed down. “You seem to have a lot of doubts, if you give them time, you’ll realize you have nothing to worry about.”

“I see what Minhyung was talking about,” he said

“What do you mean?” Ten retrieved the bone from the fire with a pair of tongs and was inspecting it, several cracks could be seen along the length. 

“Minhyung said that your predictions were generic,” he told Ten. It would be hard to tell if Ten’s fortune was actually real or just a guess.

“Most fortunes are, the problem is that wolves are all more or less the same, we’re not unique, at least most of us aren’t,” Ten stopped inspecting the bone, to stare at him. “But you are, Prince Donghyuck of the Northern Water Tribe.”

Ten gave him a minute to let his statement sink it. It was possible that Ten was just bluffing, it was easy to guess that there had to be something unique about the Fire Nation to go out of there way to ensure that Donghyuck was Minhyungs mate.

“You and I will meet again when you least expect it and when we do I’m sure you’ll have a different question,” Ten leaned back in his chair and Donghyuck just looked at him.

“Is that it? Is that your whole prediction? That I’m special?” he questioned.

“I know it's something you have already heard before, at least to some degree, but you will understand what that truly means when the time comes, for now it would be useless and premature to tell you,” Ten responded. “I’m sorry if it's not what you wanted to hear.”

“It's just a tad bit disappointing,” he replied as he got up and pushed in his chair. “Nonetheless thank you for your time.”

“One more thing Prince Donghyuck,” Ten said, his back was turned to the fortuneteller and Ten didn’t wait for him to turn around when he spoke again. “It might not seem relevant now, but don’t forget Minhyung is a nice guy, but even nice guys mess up.”

\---

“How did it go?” They were walking down the hill to the harbor and the sun had begun to set. Minhyung had given him a bracelet when he walked out of the fortuneteller's tent, the alpha had said the metalbenders tent was next to the fortuneteller’s and he had taken the opportunity to get something nice. Ten had scoffed from inside the tent but Minhyung had ignored him in favor of putting the bracelet around Donghyuck’s wrist.

“I don’t know, he said some things but they weren’t particularly mind-boggling,” he said. He was fiddling with the bracelet, it held various charms and they were a combination of Water Tribe and Fire Nation elements. It wasn’t exactly something he would expect a Fire Nation stand to have on hand and it made him curious as to, if Minhyung had gotten it made before and just wanted to make it seem like a casual gift.

“Yeah it was kind of the same for me too, like they were kind of already things I knew,” Minhyung offered. “Did he at least say anything interesting?”

“He gave me a warning,” he replied quietly. He wasn’t quite sure if it was a good idea to tell him about it, but he also felt like it was something that concerned Minhyung.

“Oh,” Minhyung said plainly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“He basically told me that you would mess up in the future, but I should remember you’re a nice guy,” he looked at Minhyung and the alpha had his eyebrows furrowed.

“Do you believe him?” Minhyung was calm, he took it as a good sign.

“Mates fight all the time, it would be hard to believe that we wouldn’t fight in the future,” he reasoned and Minhyung gave him a nod.

“Yeah, but it seems like he’s saying it would be something big,” Minhyung said.

“Maybe,” he replied, it was what he had feared in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter nobody asked for (the whole fic tbh). I don't think anybody commented about Mark's dragon, so I'm just going to assume most of y'all forgot, lol.
> 
> In case any of you were curious, Nessie's telepathic abilities I kind of based off of Roku's dragons telepathy as a spirit. Although I don't think Roku's dragon could do it in real life. Ten is basically Aunt Wu, if his prediction are as fake as hers, that's yet to be determined.
> 
> I honestly had a hard time writing this chapter. I had the first four chapters unedited when I first posted this fic a month ago and I had like 200 words of this chapter. I have been lowkey writing this chapter for the past month and until yesterday I have been very unmotivated to finish writing it. I'm not quite happy with it, but I've also been working on it too long to completely scrap it or start over.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the chapter and thank you guys for reading!


	6. O, Swear Not by the Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “That wouldn’t have been romantic,” he teased.
> 
> “I don’t think anything about fishing is romantic,” Minhyung smiled at him and it made his heart flutter.
> 
> “Maybe, but it would have killed the tiny romantic factor it has now,” he reasoned and Minhyung nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me a while to write this and for different reasons this time. 
> 
> As a warning there is a sex scene in the second half of the chapter, if you don't like it, don't read it, it is the only one I have planned for this story, although that is subject to change. The sex in this chapter is consensual and not heat sex.
> 
> Edit 1/8/21: This chapter and previous chapters have been edited, nothing has changed plot wise although some chapters/scenes are more heavily edited than others.

As it turned out fishing was a lot more boring than he expected it to be. 

There was a tradition in the Northern Water Tribe that the alphas and betas always looked forward to leading up to their fourteenth year. Their fourteenth year meant they would be able to go on fishing trips with the hunters of the tribe. It was always a cause for excitement and Donghyuck had always pictured fishing to be fun, there had to be a reason the young wolves looked forward to it. But in his very honest opinion it was just a big fraud.

He and Mark had been fishing for what felt like hours and they hadn’t caught anything. He had come to the conclusion that either Mark was horrible at fishing or there were no fish in the Harbor. Although he was leaning towards the former since he had seen all the fish the fisherman had caught for sale in the city when they had gone before.

“We probably should have brought Johnny with us,” Minhyung mumbled. Minhyung sounded bitter and he was sure that if they had brought Johnny with them, Minhyung would be embarrassed at his lack of fishing abilities.

“That wouldn’t have been romantic,” he teased.

“I don’t think anything about fishing is romantic,” Minhyung smiled at him and it made his heart flutter.

“Maybe, but it would have killed the tiny romantic factor it has now,” he reasoned and Minhyung nodded.

“The only romantic part of it is that we are mates,” Mark said. It almost felt like a joke to call each other mates, they didn’t do anything that mates did, they had kissed once and held hands, all things that courting wolves did. It was almost ridiculous in a sense, they were already married and they were practically strangers.

They fell into a comfortable silence, they had left for the harbor at sunrise and now the sun was high in the sky. He hadn’t felt well in the morning but he didn’t mention it and now with the sun shining brutality on him, he felt very faint, maybe he needed to eat something. Minhyung had said they would eat the fish they caught for lunch, but they hadn’t caught any and he wasn't sure if he should suggest they eat something else.

“Are you okay? You don’t look so great.” Minhyungs voice pulled him out of his thoughts.

“I think I’m just hungry,” he replied. Minhyungs eyes widened in realization and it was a tad bit amusing.

“We can go back to the palace if you’re not feeling well. It's been a hot day. I sometimes forget you’re not used to this,” Minhyung offered. 

It wasn’t about it being a particularly warm day, it had been an unusually cold morning and he still hadn’t felt well. Granted, the heat definitely wasn’t helping though.

“We can just go eat in the city and come back. I think Johnny will laugh at us if we don’t go back to the palace with at least one fish,” he said. 

He didn’t know Johnny well, only having spoken to him a handful of times about very mundane things but he knew Johnny liked to tease Minhyung. Although Johnny would never tease him, he knew sometimes the teasing did get to Minhyung.

“You’re right, but I can endure a bit of teasing, if it means you feel better,” Minhyung looked at him warmly and it always did something to his heart when Minhyung looked at him like that.

“I’m fine,” he assured Minhyung, the alpha didn’t look convinced but didn’t insist further.

\---

Being away from the sun did make him feel better but not by much, he still felt faint and he felt entirely too warm. He didn’t want to get back on the boat but he also didn’t want to go back on his words, so they were back on the boat after an hour or two of venturing off into the city.

Minhyung bought better bait and he still didn’t really care about the whole fishing adventure. The only good thing that came out of it was that he was sitting with the side of his body pressed on Minhyung and Minhyung had led his head onto the alphas shoulder. They were both still holding their fishing rods but Minhyung had intertwined their free hands together and really they were just enjoying each other's presence more than they were actually trying to catch fish.

“Your scent is really strong today,” Minhyung commented, he felt more than he heard Minhyungs voice, the vibration of his voice ricocheting through him. It was nice. 

He too, had noticed his scent on their walk into the city, when they weren’t surrounded by the strong smell of the sea. A few wolves had turned their heads at his scent but had quickly looked away when they saw who he was and who he was with.

He usually did a pretty good job of repressing his scent, usually it was barely noticeable, but he wasn’t sure why today he was having trouble. Maybe it was because he was sick?

“I think my omega is just happy,” he snuggled into Minhyung's shoulder. Minhyung was always warm and for whatever reason, despite burning up, it made him feel better.

“Oh,” Minhyung said. “Why?”

It was a simple question with a simple answer, but it was hard for him to tell the alpha the reason not only his omega, but also he was happy today.

“I like your touch,” he said softly, timidly.

It wasn’t the reality of the situation, he didn’t just like Minhyungs touch, he craved it and it had been so long since his craving was actually satisfied, since they had kissed, months ago. The hand holding was not enough, neither were the accidental brushes, or the bed sharing when Minhyung slept so close to the edge of their bed that Donghyuck sometimes was scared that Minhyung would fall off.

“I didn’t realize it was something you liked,” Minhyung said. Sometimes he felt like he needed it, like he would combust if Minhyung didn’t hold him.

“I’m your omega of course I like your touch.”It felt dumb to have to tell Minhyung he liked his touch. Wolves liked skinship, especially from their mates and he wasn’t any different.

“I… I don’t know much about omega psychology, we weren’t really taught much about it in school,” Minhyung told him.

“Do you not like my touch then?” He asked carefully.

“I do!” Minhyung said loudly and if there had been any fish nearby Minhyung would have scared them by now. “I just didn’t know if it was because I was attracted to you or because of our bond.”

“Which one do you think it is?” His heart was pounding although he wouldn’t admit why at least not to Minhyung.

“Both? I don’t know, they both seem to go hand in hand in a way.” He tried not to let his heart sink at Minhyungs response although it was harder than it seemed, especially when his own emotions were so strong that they overshadowed any of Minhyungs peaking through.

“You’re attracted to me because of the bond?” He wasn’t accusing Minhyung, but his omega whined at the thought of Minhyung only liking him because they were mated and not despite it.

“That’s- That's not what I meant.” Minhyung tilted his head so it would rest on top of the omegas. “I’ve found you attractive since the night we met.”

“You have?” He knew he sounded hopeful, he just prayed Minhyung didn’t realize, that would be embarrassing.

“Yeah…” Minhyung breathed out loudly. “I’ve just… always heard about you and when I saw you… You were just so breathtaking.”

“How long did you know?” He tried to hide his eagerness, although he wasn’t sure if Minhyung could tell.

“Know what?” Minhyung sounded mildly confused.

“About us mating,” he said and he was conscious of the silence that spread between them. It was profuse, so much so that he began to question if it was a mistake to ask in the first place.

“A while,” Minhyung paused. “Jungwoo overheard our dads talking around my twelfth year, but my dad didn’t actually tell me until my sixteenth year.”

“What did you think about it?” He asked carefully. He wanted an honest answer from Minhyung, but even if he did want honesty, it was apprehensive to hear what Minhyung would actually say.

“I’m the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, I didn’t expect much freedom in who I would mate with.” Minhyung squeezed his hand faintly, he wasn’t sure if it was intentional. “I just kind of hoped we’d like… fall in love? I don’t know, I just didn’t want us to be unhappy together.”

It wasn’t a confession, far from it, there wasn’t a point to a confession when Minhyung had always bared his feelings for Donghyuck to see, regardless of what he could tell from the bond or from the pheromones. 

“What about you?” Minhyung asked.

“What do you mean?” He closed his eyes as his mind went to his first impression of Minhyung, he had found the boy to be plain looking, but now was a different story. Seeing the twinkle in Minhyungs eyes whenever the alpha looked at him changed his perspective. 

“What did you think of me?” It wasn’t a trick question, but it felt like it. 

“I didn’t know much about you,” he answered instead. He tried to think about the times that his dad or brothers had mentioned the Fire Nation Royal Family. The things they said weren’t good, but nobody from the Northern Water Tribe had traveled outside the North Pole in the past century. There hadn’t been a reason to before he had, so he had taken anything they said with a grain of salt because anything they could possibly know about the Fire Nation from first hand experiences had to have grown stale by now. “I had heard things about the Fire Nation, mostly from the Earth King, but even then it was far and few inbetween. I mainly interacted with Prince Yukhei when the Royal Earth Family family came and he usually only talked about the Earth Kingdom. He had only met the Fire Lord when he was too young to remember, but he held a bit of a grudge.”

“Because of his brother?” Minhyung asked and he nodded.

“Yeah, but it wasn’t just towards the Fire Lord…” He trailed off. He thought of the times Yukhei had shared with him how he thought the Earth Kings bear hadn’t been worth it. He also didn’t think a bear was worth losing a son over but he didn’t tell Yukhei because he knew him trash talking the Earth King wasn’t the same as Yukhei trash talking the Earth King.

“My dad didn’t kill his bear in case you were wondering,” Minhyung clarified. Minhyung sounded serious and he found it cute.

“I had a feeling,” he laughed. When he was little, he and Renjun would wonder how the bear had died, they had figured that the Earth King had overreacted although he never dared ask Yukhei. The Battle of Ba Sing Se was a sensitive topic, he and Yukhei never talked about it if Yukhei didn’t bring it up and even then, he didn’t ask questions, only listened to what Yukhei chose to tell him.

“I… always thought it was stupid,” Minhyung muttered. “That we were at war because of the bear, that people died because of it.”

“It probably wasn’t because of the bear,” he reasoned. He knew the Earth King his whole life and he was certain the Earth King would have found something else to fight the Fire Lord about. “The Earth King was really temperamental and I’m sure even if his bear was alive to this day, the Earth King would have started the war for another reason.”

“I’ve never asked you,” Minhyung started, it seemed as though he had just realized something.

“Asked me what?”

“I feel kind of like an idiot for not realizing before,” Minhyung moved his head away so their heads weren’t touching anymore. “The Earth King's death and the Earth Prince's imprisonment must have affected you.”

It wasn’t something he wanted to think about or liked to for that matter. The Earth King's death didn’t feel real, he could still imagine the Earth King in his palace with the badgermoles he always insisted on bringing to the North Pole, even though they had trouble seeing when they walked on the ice of the capital.

He had thought about Yukhei sometimes, although he hadn’t liked the Prince, he still cared what happened to him. At times he felt bad that he was living a relatively good life and Yukhei was probably locked in a cell somewhere for doing nothing but being born into royalty. 

“That wasn’t a question,” he decided to respond instead, his emotions were all over the place and he didn’t want to answer something that he would regret or didn’t mean or didn’t come out the way he had intended it to.

“I guess it wasn’t,” Minhyung shook his head. “I’m sorry for making the mood weird.”

“It’s fine,”He assure Minhyung even though he wasn’t sure if it really was, but he couldn’t really say anything else. “Let’s not talk about the Earth Kingdom.”

He felt like the idiot, Minhyung had only asked him about Yukhei once, he hadn’t given him permission to mention his previous fiance whenever he wanted and yet here he was talking about Yukhei and Minhyung felt bad instead. It felt like a joke, Minhyung should be offended, but he wasn’t and he wasn’t sure what to make of it. 

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Minhyung said apologetically and it was then when he realized his scent had soured. He mentally groaned, he just made everything worse.

“I should be the one who should be sorry.” He could feel Minhyungs confusion and he took a deep breath. “I shouldn’t have talked about Prince Yukhei.”

“What do you mean?” Minhyung pulled away to turn to look at him. “He was part of your life for a long time, it's natural if you talk about him.”

“No.” He shook his head and Minhyung furrowed his eyebrows. “It’s offensive to you.”

“I wouldn’t have asked you about him before if I was offended by your engagement to him. I’ve known about it for years, if I was mad about it, I would have never asked about him in the first place.” Minhyung intertwined their hands again. “You’re my mate now, I want you to be open with me. It doesn’t matter who you were engaged to before and it doesn’t matter if you talk about him.”

“Are you sure?” They looked at each other for what felt like an eternity but in reality was only a few seconds. Minhyungs eyes were beautiful and if others wore their hearts on their sleeves, Minhyung bared his heart in the way he looked at you.

“Yeah.” As he looked in Minhyungs eyes, he couldn’t help but think it wouldn’t be bad if he fell in love with the alpha.

\---

Someone was trying to shake him awake, but unlike most morning where he overslept he found it difficult to open his eyes. 

It was hard to hear too, his ears felt like they were filled with cotton and he could hear someone's voice, but it felt far away and the ringing in his ears felt much closer than the muffled voice.

“Donghyuck?” The voice sounded like Minhyungs, but he couldn’t be too sure. Alot sounded like Minhyungs voice nowadays. 

Sometimes he’d be deep in concentration and he would swear he could hear Minhyung calling out to him. It was only when he looked around and noticed Renjun confusion, that he realized he had imagined it. 

“Open your eyes sweetie,” the voice said. The voice sounded clearer now, not as distant and he tried to follow the voices instructions. It was easier said than done when his eyelids felt like heavy weights and his body felt like it had been set on fire. He felt a hand rest on his face and the touch alarmed him as much as it brought him an odd sense of relief and the contradicting feelings were what allowed him to open his eyes, the need to know if he was in danger was prominent. 

His eyes met with Minhyung immediately after he opened them and he relaxed soon after.

“How do you feel?” Minhyung said while stroking his cheek, if he wasn’t afraid of not being able to open his eyes again, he would have closed them at the serenity his mates touch was granting him. But his fear didn’t stop him from leaning into Minhyungs hand.

“Terrible,” he replied. His throat felt scratching and his voice sounded hoarse, he hadn’t realized how dry his throat felt before and Minhyung softly chuckled at his response.

“Do you want water?” He gave Minhyung a nod and Minhyung helped him sit up before handing him a glass of water. 

He felt entirely too warm and the drag of the blankets and the clothes on his skin irritated him and when he leaned forward slightly he felt the hardness of his cock resting on his navel and he furrowed his eyebrows slightly before he realized that slick was beginning to pool in between his legs.

“Am I in heat?” He asked when he connected the dots. It wasn’t usually for him to wake up hard and wet, but it usually didn’t come with a fever and a stronger than usual attraction to his mate. He had been too young to have a heat before, but now that he was of age, it was extremely likely that this was what he was feeling.

“The doctor said you were in preheat and should be in heat by tomorrow,” Minhyung informed him.

“Oh,” he sighed. It made sense, he _had_ felt ill the day before. He didn’t have anything to compare to before, so it was easy to mistake the signs as an illness rather than a heat.

“We… We’ve never talked about it,” Minhyung said carefully and Minhyung didn’t need to explicitly say what _it_ was for him to get the idea. 

His heat. Sex.

“We haven’t,” he replied simply. It had been naive of him to forget about his heat when he knew his biology didn’t care, when his body wanted to mate with the alpha he kept so close yet so far, with the alpha he was, in fact, bonded to.

He should have talked to his alpha about it, maybe even gotten a check up from the royal physician. He should have been expecting his heat, he knew it was bound to come now that he was of age, but he didn’t. Yet it didn’t matter because talking wouldn’t change the fact that he was going to be in heat soon.

“I can leave if it’s easier for you,” Minhyung offered and shook his head immediately. It was exactly the opposite of what he wanted, he wanted his mate to be at his side for his heat even if they hadn’t talked about it in advance.

“No,” he said quickly, too quickly. It came out harsher than he had anticipated, but at least it stopped Minhyung from getting stupid ideas stuck in his head. 

“You don’t want me to leave?” Minhyung asked and he looked confused. It was truly endearing how considerate Minhyung tried to be, even when Minhyung’s aroused scent was overpowering Donghyucks when it should be the opposite.

“The healers in the Water Tribe always said it would be painful without a mate,” he said as an excuse and he was sure Minhyung saw past it though.

“We haven’t… done it yet,” Minhyung a bit embarrassed but neither of them commented because he too felt his own embarrassment separate from Minhyung’s. “I don’t want our first time to be something you won’t remember well.”

“We can just do it now, I’m not in heat now,” he tried to sound nonchalant but he knew he sounded unsure. Sex was something he had always believed would be expected out of him, that he wouldn’t have a choice. Being given a choice he hadn’t previously believed he had was overwhelming. He could say no, he could spend his heat alone, but he didn’t want to even if he felt hesitant to have finally have sex with Minhyung.

“Are you sure?” Minhyung asked, probably sensing his hesitance and he gave the older a small smile.

“When is a better time than now?” He said. Minhyung looked like he had many things to say and Donghyuck could feel the alphas inner turmoil.

“Do you want to do it right now?” Minhyung asked slowly. Minhyung looked uncertain and he felt uncertain too. It felt like something they should wait for the right time to do, at least for the first time, but he also wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity for his mate to touch him.

“Yeah,” he whispered. Minhyung didn’t move, instead he stared at Donghyuck’s face. Uncertainty was painted on Minhyungs face with hesitant brush strokes and uneven paint. 

They never spoke about sex, they chose instead to tiptoed around each other like they had the first night they shared a bed. Instead they choose to get off, a door apart and pretend neither heard the other, they went to sleep with blushes resting on their cheeks and the desire to touch their mate, perhaps for different reasons, but the desire burned the same.

Minhyung wanted this, that Donghyuck knew. He could feel how heat curled in Minhyungs stomach and the strong scent of sandalwood and musk overpowered Donghyucks own. 

He acted first, knowing the alpha wouldn’t out of respect for him. He pulled Minhyung onto their bed for a kiss and although Donghyuck initiated it Minhyung reciprocated the kiss with more intensity than necessary.

Minhyung was eager, Donghyuck noticed. 

He had imagined Minhyung to be stiff and unwilling to touch him, but the alpha wasn’t. Instead Minhyungs hands roamed his body freely before landing on his ass, only then did Minhyung hesitate, only then did Minhyungs nervousness show itself. He let out a moan into the alphas mouth to encourage Minhyung, but Minhyung stiffened and dropped his hands from the omegas body. He whined in a way that made Minhyung shiver.

“Touch me alpha,” he whispered into his mates mouth, it didn’t melt Minhyungs hesitance but it did light a fire in the alpha eyes, in their bond. 

Minhyung didn’t bear a permanent physical mark of their bond, but it didn’t matter, at least not right now, when all Minhyung needed to know could be smelled in the air. He had no idea what Minhyung could tell from his body language and pheromones alone, but he knew the alpha should feel a pull towards his omega. Donghyuck wanted this, maybe even more than Minhyung did.

He grabbed Minhyungs hands from where they laid on the bed and led them back to his body. Minhyung was shaking now and if it was from want or nerves, he wasn’t sure. Perhaps it was a mixture of both, of the built up emotions they both had.

“Look at me,” he commanded the alpha. He wasn’t in a position of power, he would never be, and it was risky to assert dominance over an alpha, but somehow he knew it was what Minhyung needed in the moment. Minhyung met his gaze. “ _Good_. I’m okay. I _want_ my alpha to touch me, I _want_ my alpha to fuck me.”

Minhyung shivered again and it brought him joy to know he could affect his alpha like that, for the alpha to have the desire to touch him even though Minhyungs was scared. Of what, he couldn't be sure unless Minhyung told him.

“Why won’t you touch me?” He asked and he leaned in close to Minhyung and their eyes met briefly before Minhyungs eyelids stuttered close and Minhyung closed the gap between their lips. Minhyung parted his lips and he licked into Minhyung's mouth before biting on the alphas bottom lip and Minhyung let out a choked moan.

“I am,” Minhyung affirmed against his lips. Minhyung's hands still rested where he had put them but they were stiff and showed no signs of moving anytime soon. 

“You know what I mean,” he voice muffled and Minhyung didn’t respond, instead he pulled away from Donghyucks mouth and rested his forehead on the omegas.

“I’m scared,” Minhyung whispered, his breath sending shivers down Donghyuck’s spine. Minhyungs eyes were closed but his face had always been equally as expressive.

“Of what?” He asked. He too was scared of many things, but he found no use in dwelling on his fears, for they didn’t matter in the long run.

“I didn't want this to happen so soon, I wanted it to happen naturally not because you're in heat,” Minhyungs breath fanned out over his chest and he felt another shiver run up his spine, the air in the room felt cold against the heat of his skin even though he knew the room wasn’t actually cold.

"But it is," He cradled the alphas cheeks. "I'm not in heat and you gave me a choice."

Minhyung still looked hesitant and he understood him, but he didn’t want him to be, he wanted the alpha to believe him, to believe that he actually wanted to have sex with him and not because his heat was forcing him to.

" _Alpha_ , I want you to fuck me," he whispered onto Minhyungs lips and the alpha shuttered. He wanted the older to believe him because it was the truth, he wanted this as much as it frightened him because it was a step in their relationship that shouldn’t have meant anything, but yet it would, "I want you." 

Like earlier, he made the move. And like earlier, Minhyung still wanted this and this time when their lips met, Minhyung melted into him. He put his hands on Minhyungs and encouraged the alpha to touch him.

After much debating and time passing, the alpha pulled him onto his lap and only then did he notice the slick trickling down his thighs and his inner thighs were coated in slick. He had probably been wet the entire time and it was embarrassing that he hadn’t noticed.

“Do you always get this wet?” Minhyung asked as he ran his hand up the omegas thighs, Minhyung pulled his hand away and observed the consistency of his slick before rubbing it on the parts of the skin that were dry. It should have been gross, the deliberate mess Minhyung was making, but he found it kinda hot.

“You’re back to being confident?” He teased and Minhyung chuckled.

The alpha pulled off both of their bottoms, but he left his own underpants on, although if Minhyung was attempting to hide anything with his undergarments, they were doing a bad job at it. 

It was easy to get lost in the feeling of Minhyung touching him, especially when most of the time he longed for the feeling of Minhyungs skin on his own. It was easy to get lost in the brush of Minhyungs lips on his bite mark and to relax into the feeling of Minhyung working his fingers into him. It was easy to get lost in the sensation of Minhyung stroking his cock as he fingered him. It was easy to get lost in Minhyung in general.

The alpha was making an attempt at being gentle but the roughness of the alphas hands was anything but gentle and Donghyuck wouldn’t have it any other way. He found that he liked the moments where Minhyung would work mindlessly and would be a little too rough, a little too careless, before Minhyung would remember that he probably should be careful and gentle and the recognition in Minhyung was enough to make Donghyuck smile fondly at his mate.

“Stop, I’m going to cum,” he whispered into the alphas' ear, at least he attempted to whisper. His voice came out raspy and he wasn’t sure if the alpha had understood him.

“Then cum,” Minhyungs voice was also hoarse and if possible it made him more wet.

“I want you to knot me as I cum,” he confessed. His comment had the intended effect, Minhyung's clothed cock twitched from where it rested against the omegas inner thigh, the cloth was dampened by a mixture of Donghyuck slick and Minhyungs precum and although it should be gross, it wasn’t. “Let me suck you off.”

Minhyung made a noise that sounded like he had choked on his own saliva and he chuckled. He wasn’t sure where his boldness was coming from but he was glad Minhyung was tongue tied.

“Next time,” Minhyung breathed out. “I’ll cum before I even have the chance to knot you like you want.”

“Let’s get on with it then,” he urged. He was suddenly nervous and maybe it was because he had wanted this since Minhyung had bitten him or maybe it was because he liked Minhyung. 

He had tried to deny his feelings before, but he felt like it was inevitable when the bond forced him to be attracted to his mate. Minhyung liked him too, of that he was certain, Minhyung had all but said it. Even though he wanted to feel emotionally unattached at the idea of giving his virginity to Minhyung, he knew he wasn’t and he knew Minhyung wasn’t either.

“We can always stop, no matter what,” Minhyung told him. Minhyungs eyes were filled with concern and if he wasn’t currently horny and his impending heat it would be touching, but right now it was annoying how caring Minhyung was trying to be.

“I don’t think we’ll need to do that,” he replied, rubbing his quad on Minhyungs clothed cock, the alpha bit his lips and closed his eyes. “The same goes for you, we can always stop.” 

Minhyung didn’t reply, instead flipping them around so Donghyuck was flat on his back and Minhyung was hovering over him. Minhyung leaned down to kiss him and this time Minhyung was calm, or at least appeared to be, he didn’t rush the kiss, instead he gently pressed their mouths together and let the omega lead the kiss.

Minhyungs hands rested on his hips and he reached down to tug on Minhyungs nightshirt, the alpha broke the kiss to take it off and then leaned back down, Minhyung pushed their chest flush against each other and he moaned at the sensation of Minhyungs bare chest touching his own. The alpha kissed his sweat glands at the base of his neck, on the opposite side of where his mark was and he resisted the urge to wrap his legs around Minhyungs waist, although he was sure the alpha would like that.

“Alpha,” he stuttered out.

“You really like calling me that,” Minhyung commented. It came out breathy and it made him blush to be called out, but he was sure Minhyung liked it too.

“I need you inside of me,” he said instead. One of Minhyungs hands moved from his hip down to his hole and Donghyuck grabbed Minhyungs hand. “Not your fingers.”

“Are you sure?” Minhyung looked at him with concern and he tried to put on his best smile for Minhyung, hoping it would convince Minhyung. 

“I’ll tell you to stop if I don’t want it.” He answered instead, knowing a simple yes wouldn’t be enough to convince the alpha.

He rested his hand on the waistband of Minhyungs underwear and Minhyung put his hand over his and led his hand under the waistband and onto the shaft of Minhyungs cock. It was weird at first, to touch another man's cock when he spent his teenage years familiarizing himself with his own. Minhyungs cock was a lot larger than his own and he was left feeling unconfident in his action, he knew what he liked, but he had on idea of how Minhyung liked to get off. Minhyung seemed to sense his confliction and guided his hand up and down the shaft.

Their eyes met and they didn’t look away as they pumped Minhyung dick. Minhyung didn’t wait long before Minhyung pulled down his own underpants and Donghyuck let go of the olders cock when Minhyung pushed him to flat on his back. Minhyung hovered above him again and the tip of Minhyung cock touched Donghyuck's stomach and he unconsciously spread his legs for his mate.

“Relax,” Minhyung whispered. It was easier said than done. He felt nervousness mixed in with excitement and the effects of an impending heat. “Open up just a little bit more for me.”

He spreads his legs more and Minhyung hooks his hand under Donghyucks knees and angled Donghyucks legs upwards.

“Are you ready?” Minhyung asks, the alpha pressed the head of his cock to his entrance and Donghyuck let out a deep breath. 

He nodded and Minhyung also took a deep breath before pressing into him. The glide was easy from the amount of slick he was secreting, albeit a bit uncomfortable. It wasn’t the same as his fingers or Minhyungs and maybe it was because he hadn’t felt something so large inside of him before or maybe it was because he knew it was his alpha's cock that made the feeling different.

“Move,” he breathed out. It was a bit overwhelming at first to feel Minhyung buried deep inside him and it was also too much to feel Minhyung pressing against his wall, against his prostate.

Minhyung gave him a nod before pulling out slowly, until he almost wasn’t inside him anymore, Minhyung thrusted back in, just as slowly. 

“Don’t be careful, I’m not going to break,” he panted out. He caressed Minhyung’s cheek and Minhyung leaned into the touch. Minhyung picked up the pace, not by much but at least he didn’t feel like Minhyung was trying to split him open.

When he felt more comfortable, he rolled his hips to meet Minhyung thrust and Minhyung shuttered the first time he did it. He wrapped his legs around the alphas waist and the angle was almost too much for him, Minhyung tip hit his prostate with every thrust and Minhyungs stomach rubbed on his cock because of how close they were and he knew he wouldn’t last long if they stayed in that position.

He tried to put his feet back on the bed but Minhyung kept his legs in place.

“Stop, I’m going to cum,” he stuttered out.

“Then cum,” Minhyung repeated. They kissed, all tongue and he wrapped his arms around Minhyungs neck and Minhyung smiled into the kiss.

Minhyungs knot was growing and it sent tingles down his spine everytime it dragged against his walls. Minhyung tried to pull out so he wasn’t fucking the omega with it anymore, but he protested.

“I told you I wanted you to knot me,” he practically whined. Minhyung nodded in understanding and he felt oddly content.

It was a lot, Minhyungs knot was big and he felt like he was drowning as it began to grow inside him with every thrust. He felt tears begin to well up in his eyes and it was hard to hold them back. He didn’t want Minhyung to stop if he saw his eyes begin to water, so he closed his eyes and hoped the tears didn’t fall.

“Bite me,” he muttered into Minhyung’s mouth. Minhyung mouthed, open mouthed, down his throat before instinctively finding where his previous bite mark was. He tilted his head, baring his throat for his alpha and Minhyung bit down on the skin.

This time he didn’t stop the moan that built up in his throat, but it was equally as overwhelming as the first time. He felt the flow of Minhyungs emotions pour into him and if Minhyungs feelings were alot before, they were unbearable now. Minhyung's own pleasure overwhelmed him and he couldn’t control himself as he clenched down on Minhyungs knot and he came all over both of their stomachs. It didn’t take long after for Minhyung to cum inside him. 

It was only when they had both come down from their highs that Minhyung stopped biting his neck. 

Minhyung looked down at him and it felt like the only thing that mattered at that moment was them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fishing 'date' was suppose to happen last chapter, but I kind of forgot until I was halfway through writing the fortuneteller scene and well, I had put too much effort in to scrap the fortuneteller thing.
> 
> The fishing trip in the Northern Water Tribe that Donghyuck mentioned was inspired by the Ice dodging tradition of the Southern Water Tribe. The type of fish they catch is their test of wisdom, bravery and trust. Although the Northern Water Tribes tradition I imagine to be less exhilarating. Also since I didn't really find a good place to mention it in the chapter, in case you were wondering, they didn't catch any fish and Johnny made fun of Mark.
> 
> I struggled with the smut because I've never written it before and I hope it came out well. Donghyuck's heat will be mentioned next chapter but nothing explicit because I don't have any more smut in me right now. 
> 
> I hope you liked the chapter and thank you for reading!


	7. Before Our Spring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are many things going on around the world and even in my own town and many things I'd like to address.
> 
> It saddens me that yet another person had to die due to the malice of the people in this world and because of a system that does everything but what it's supposed to do, protect its people. It saddens me, yet it doesn't surprise me hearing about yet another victim of police brutality and that's what perhaps makes it worse, for me to have become so accustomed to hearing about the injustices committed in my country. Law enforcement and the justice system have not only failed black people, but all minorities throughout history and it is our duty to help in any way we can, be it by joining the protests, donating, signing petitions, or anyway that contributes to the cause but does not silence the voice of black people.
> 
> I would also like to speak on something that I have not only seen going around my college campus but others colleges in my area as well. On my college campus there have been a series of rape/sexual assault allegations in the past few days and I wanted to take the time to remind all of you that sex is consensual and if consent wasn't given then it is rape. As someone who has been sexually harassed in the past by someone on the list, I do know how hard it is to speak up. I want to let anyone out there who has been a victim of any kind of abuse (sexual, physical, mental or emotional) know that you aren’t alone and that your experience, whether it be something you share or something you wish to keep private, is valid and no one can tell you otherwise.
> 
> I wanted to especially mention consent when it comes to sex because it is something that is oftentimes glossed over in a/b/o fics and with heats especially, like I mentioned in the previous chapter, hyucks heat is mentioned in this chapter but not too explicitly. It is implied that the heat sex was consensual but if you are uncomfortable then you can skip the first two sections, you won't miss much.
> 
> This is quite a long authors note and I wanted to end it on a semi positive note. Although the past few weeks have honestly been hard for many communities, I wanted to update for our Full Sun birthday, he is after all the star of show, so to speak. I have done some planning/brainstorming and I have updated/reordered the tags to reflect everything that I currently have planned for this fic. This does not mean I won't add tags in the future because things are subject to change and tbh I might have forgot some.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy the chapter!
> 
> Edit 1/8/21: This chapter and previous chapters have been edited, nothing has changed plot wise although some chapters/scenes are more heavily edited than others.

His heat lasted four days. He’d like to say he remembered most of it but he didn’t. 

He had remained lucid through his whole heat, which was harder said than done when his omega was at its strongest and it would have been much easier to let go, to let his instinct take over and beg for his alpha. 

He still begged, but in a dignified way, in a way that he would be able to look at Minhyung when it was over and not feel mortified of his own action.

Although he was aware of everything he did in his heat, one could only remember so many consecutive rounds of sex vividly, all the same yet not quite. They had sex on the various surfaces of their bedroom, but it all consisted of the same thing, Minhyung fucked him, knotted him and then took care of him. Sometimes Minhyung would switch up the foreplay but in the end, his desires were only sated with one thing and even then it wasn’t long before he was asking Minhyung to knot him again.

Minhyung had cum in him and knotted him afterwards so many times that it was unlikely he wasn’t pregnant and it was something he only realized on the second night of his heat. 

Minhyung had touched his stomach as they came. He knew it was something probably done more out of instinct then it was about Minhyung breeding him, but it didn’t stop him from panicking and holding back his tears as they laid on their sides as they waited for Minhyungs knot to go down. It didn’t stop him from being hyper aware of the circles Minhyung was rubbing on his stomach and the calmness Minhyung was currently feeling. He waited until he thought the older was asleep and he had silently cried about it.

Minhyung hadn’t been asleep.

Minhyung had hugged Donghyucks back to his chest and Minhyung had scented Donghyuck’s neck until he stopped crying. He knew Minhyung had wanted to ask but the alpha didn’t and he was grateful for Minhyungs consideration for once.

They didn’t separate even when Donghyuck had calmed down and he wasn’t shaking in Minhyungs hold.

They fell asleep like that and the rest of the nights of his heat they cuddled into each other and Donghyuck hoped it would become a habit outside of his heat.

\---

He woke up the morning after the fourth night of his heat exhausted. He didn’t feel as warm as before and he sighed in relief that his heat appeared to be over.

His head was on Minhyungs chest and his upper body was laying on the older. Minhyung was running his fingers through his hair and it would be nice if Minhyungs fingers weren’t getting caught in his curls.

“That hurts,” he murmured. Minhyung chuckle ran through him and he snuggled into the elders chest.

Minhyung dropped the hand in his hair to rest on his shoulder blade, Minhyung's other hand was already resting on the small of his back. 

He should really teach Minhyung how to touch his hair properly. Minhyung had developed the habit of trying to rake his fingers through his hair as they cuddled and more often than not Minhyung fingers would get tangled and it hurt. He knew Minhyung liked doing it so he tried to suck it up most of the time.

“How are you feeling?” Minhyung asked, voice groggy from sleep, it sounded nice.

“Like you ran me over with a truck,” he replied. He struggled to stay awake when his alpha was close and he felt safe in his arms.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Minhyung smiled at him, although he couldn’t see it. He had gotten good at hearing the amusement in Minhyung's voice. “You should probably get checked by the physician.”

He tried not to freeze, especially not when his body was pressed to Minhyung and it would be easy to tell, but he did and Minhyung noticed.

“It's not anything bad,” Minhyung seemed to promise, but he and Minhyung might not have the same idea of bad. “Just to make sure you didn’t overexert yourself and lose too many fluids.”

“Tomorrow,” he mumbled into Minhyung's chest. His heat and anything related to it could wait until tomorrow, he didn’t even want to think about what it would mean if he was pregnant. In the Earth Kingdom it had been customary for a Consort to not care for the royal babies instead trained caregivers were to care for the potential heir to ensure no life altering mistakes were made.

He didn’t feel ready to have a baby, but he wouldn’t feel comfortable letting someone else care for them. He knew logically it wouldn’t be his choice, especially as an omega in a foreign country, but it didn’t stop him from having his own personal opinions.

“Are you feeling well enough to go out today?” Minhyung asked after they laid in silence with the only movement between them being Minhyung running one of his hands up and down his waist.

He wasn’t in heat anymore and he honestly needed fresh air but he also didn’t think he’d be in a good mood to go on date with Minhyung, his body was sore and he was sure he’d get tired quickly.

“Depends,” he said softly. He would most likely say yes, to please Minhyung but he really wasn’t in the mood.

“You might have forgotten, you know with the recent events, but Yeji’s thing is today. We obviously don’t have to go if you’re tired, but she's not performing until the evening, so we wouldn’t have to leave until later in the day,” Minhyung offered. 

He looked up and rested his chin on Minhyungs chest, Minhyung looked down at him and it wasn’t attractive, the position he was in gave him an unflattering angle of the alphas face and he shouldn’t have found it cute, but he did.

“I’m sure she’ll understand if we don’t go, though,” Minhyung said.

Yeji has been excited to invite him to her fire dancing performance, it was her last one before she mated with her betrothal in the summer. Yeji had confessed that she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to dance once she mated and the performance was important to her for that reason. Yeji would understand if he didn’t go, but he wasn’t in heat and he didn’t have an excuse to not try to go.

“We should go, she’s your friend too,” he told Minhyung.

Yeji had always been Minhyungs friend more than she was his. Like Jungwoo, she had grown up without much of a scent and it was only until she reached puberty that they realized she wasn’t a beta, but unlike Jungwoo, Yeji was an omega. Yeji couldn’t be close to Minhyung after that, for it was improper for an omega and an alpha to be close friends, especially for teenagers, especially when Minhyung was the Fire Prince and rumors spread like wildfire. Although who Minhyung was betrothed to hadn’t been announced especially when it wasn’t official and complicated, everyone knew Minhyung was promised to someone else.

But pheromones were hard to control, especially for immature wolves. Especially for two teenage wolves that were supposed to be naturally attracted to each other because of what they presented as.

“Are you sure?” He nodded at Minhyung. “You looked tired, you should take a nap.”

“Only if you stay with me,” he said. He cringed at his own choice of words but Minhyung showed no signs of disapproval. “You’re too comfty of a pillow.”

“Okay baby,” Minhyung's voice sounded sexy and maybe it was because remnants of his heat still lingered inside him and inside the room.

He buried his face in Minhyungs chest to hide his growing blush.

\---

It felt nice to finally step foot outside his room and even better to step foot outside the palace. The only downfall to leaving the palace was that it was hot outside, even though the sun was beginning to set, but that was something he just had to get used to now that he lived in the Fire Nation.

Renjun and Yuna had made sure he looked presentable and not like he had just spent four days getting fucked by his alpha but he still felt self conscious. He felt like everyone could tell he wasn't a virgin anymore and maybe they could. He didnt know if sex changed the physical appearance of a wolf, in the Water Tribe it was said it did, but he had never noticed a difference after couples mated. He could potentially ask Renjun if it was obvious but he felt like Renjun would just laugh at him. 

As he and Minhyung walked hand in hand, he felt the usual stares of the Fire Nation citizens and although he knew he no longer smelled of heat or of Minhyungs cum, he felt like it didn't really matter. After all he was sure the servants in the palace knew and news traveled fast, especially when your alpha was the Fire Prince. 

In the Water Tribe consummation was what made a marriage valid and in the Earth Kingdom it was the lower rank biting the higher rank. Things like marriage and bonding traditions were not things written in textbooks, especially in textbooks written by a foreign nation, they were considered too intimate and therefore he wasn't sure what exactly validated his marriage to Minhyung. He knew it wasnt sex, they would have had to have sex on their wedding day if that had been the case. By the laws of the Water Tribe he wouldn’t have been able to leave the Water Tribe unless his marriage was valid, and it had to be at least valid from one nation for him to leave. He could only assume it was Minhyungs bite, especially with the way the Fire Sages had insisted on Minhyung biting him in the Spirit Oasis as if Minhyungs bite wouldn't have been detectable otherwise.

He wasn’t sure if he minded the stares, well more than usual at least. Minhyung looked and felt happy and that was always a good thing, he knew Minhyung would have been sad if he wouldn’t have been able to go, which is why he put aside his instincts and didn’t try to hog his alpha even though he was no longer in heat. 

He knew it was jealousy that he felt when he thought of Yeji. He didn’t dislike Yeji by any means, she had proven to be a good friend but the thought of his alpha being close to an unmated omega made him nervous. He hovered behind Minhyung when the two would talk in his presence. Of course Minhyung never noticed his weird, borderline inappropriate actions but Yeji did and it was embarrassing that she would throw him knowing looks. Yeji would never dare look at his alpha as more than a friend and he knew Minhyung didn’t either but his omega didn’t care.

Minhyung had promised a good time and he was sure that under normal circumstances he would enjoy the costumes of the citizens, some even dressing up as dragons, Minhyung himself had worn one of Nessies baby teeth as a necklace. He had questioned Minhyung about it and he had said it made him look fierce, taming dragons apparently was hard and to have been able to get near a baby dragon was something that apparently took great skill.

The necklace of course wasn’t a costume, the Fire Sages always deemed it inappropriate to wear anything but formal clothing in public and the necklace was the closest they would ever get to a costume. Minhyung had gifted him a similar dragon tooth, also from Nessie and although he felt it had more significance than just being Minhyung’s dragon baby teeth, he didn’t ask. He figured Minhyung would tell him if he wanted him to know.

“Some of my friends are going to be here, do you want to meet them?” Minhyung asked, the smile never left Minhyung's face and he couldn’t help but wonder why Minhyung didn’t smile like that when they were together. Sure Minhyung smiled at him, but Minhyung's smiles were never of pure joy or excitement, they weren’t fake either. The alphas' smiles had always been of fondness ever since Minhyung had smiled at him for the first time in the gondola, when they had just bonded and they were for all intents and purposes, strangers. The smile Minhyung reserved for him hadn’t changed since then and the smile was something he had come to realize was more from Minhyungs duty as his alpha then from Minhyung himself. 

He felt his throat get tight and Minhyung's smile faltered for a second and it made him feel bad that he hadn’t kept his pheromones suppressed enough that Minhyung wouldn’t sense his bitterness. “We don’t have to… if you don’t want to. I know you’re not feeling your best and I don’t want to force you to do something that will make you uncomfortable.”

“Meeting your friends won’t make me uncomfortable,” he tried to sound like he wasn’t bitter but he knew he failed when Minhyung's face grew strained.

“Oh,” Minhyung looked away. “Then what's wrong.”

“Nothings wrong, I’m fine.” And it didn’t come out the way he intended it to, he didn’t intend to lash out on Minhyung, not ever, especially not when they were in public and anyone could hear them and Minhyung would be in his right if he retaliated in any way, shape or form.

He didn’t intend to hurt Minhyung, but it was clear he did when Minhyung took a small step back and Minhyungs smile did fall this time. It wasn’t what he wanted at least not superficially, but it had happened. Minhyung didn’t deserve it, he really didn’t. Minhyung's mood didn’t exactly fall, but it was significantly dampened and that's what made him feel bad, Minhyung had been happy that he had agreed to come and he had effectively ruined the night for the alpha. What was worse was that he could feel Minhyungs confusion.

The performance didn’t start for another hour and they spent most of it walking together silently and a distance between them that even Johnny had raised an eyebrow at. They stopped at most of the vendors and at the first one, Minhyung had handed him a pouch with coins in it and had told him to buy anything he wanted. Minhyung didn’t sound mad but he also didn’t sound happy. 

He decided only to buy something for Yeri, who had fallen ill and couldn’t come with her friends to see the performances. It was a necklace that sort of resembled this betrothal necklace although only so much, it was made of metal, probably with a molding judging by the fact that there were many of the same identical design, the metal was coated in same red that was infamous to the Fire Nation and the necklace was sold to simply wear and not to symbolize an engagement. 

Yeri had been fascinated with the necklace after she had somehow found it, even though he had told Renjun to hide it well, not really wanting to be accused of any disloyalties. She had worn it and had cried when he told her she couldn’t wear it, she had almost thrown a fit but had quickly stifled her anger when he told her it had meant something to him before he came to the Fire Nation. She hadn’t asked what it meant, but he still promised to tell her when she was older and would actually understand the significance of it, although he didn’t tell her the last part. 

They did run into one of Minhyungs friends but Minhyung kept the conversation short and didn’t really introduce him to his friend and if he noticed the confusion on Minhyungs friend's face, he didn’t say anything.

\---

Yeji didn’t perform until the second half of the show.

The first half wasn’t boring per say but it was hard to pay attention when he and Minhyung were being awkward with each other. Minhyung had gone back to sitting and being as far away from him as possible when they were in a stationary chair, side by side. It was almost comical how distant Minhyung was trying to be when they had spent the last few days having sex continuously and they had been everything but distant.

Minhyung wasn’t upset at least not from what he could tell and it seemed that most of the hurt feelings had faded and now Minhyung was just confused and hesitant, which in itself was a blessing because he had expected Minhyung to lash out at him when they returned to the palace.

He wanted to appreciate the performances especially when they would offer some kind of insight into Fire Nation culture that couldn’t be learned from books written by the Water Tribe or the Earth Kingdom. He wanted to appreciate the musician and the singers and dancers but he couldn’t when he knew he had ruined the night for Minhyung and he was thinking of ways to apologize to him when Minhyung suddenly stretched out his hand and held his palm face up. He took the olders hand into his and it was the only thing he could think of. Was Minhyung trying to tell him they were okay? That he wasn’t mad?

He kept his hand rather stiff and Minhyung rubbed the side of his palm to get him to untense his hand and it kind of helped, but it didn’t help that his heart was beating loudly in his chest and he was hyper aware of all of Minhyung movements, each breath Minhyung took and all of the emotions that Minhyung felt.

When Yeji came out with only the company of the drums beating in the background and the flames that followed her every movement. She was beautiful, graceful in a way he had never seen her. She was usually rough around the edges, uncaring of what their usual group of omegas aristocrats thought of her. Now she was still uncaring, but in a different way, in a way that it wouldn’t matter who watched her because she held the ability to captivate anyone watching, it didn’t matter if it was a thousand or just one person, she would still be as poise as she was now.

Her bending was seamless in a way that did truly feel like an extension of her body, like it wasn’t bending at all, like the streams of flames that followed her were instead ribbons like the ones the dancers of the Earth Kingdom used. She made shapes and figures out of her flames, but the shapes flowed one into another and were never out of place with her moves.

She was beautiful, but more importantly she wasn’t his competition. He didn’t need to tear her down for Minhyung to look at him, because Minhyung would always look at him.

\---

“Can I ask you something?” He asked. They were back in their room after the ride back to the palace. The darkness of the night and riding in separate palanquins had given him time to figure out what to say to Minhyung.

They had both gotten ready to go to sleep and were lying next to each other and for the first time since the night he arrived in the palace Minhyung didn’t remove the ink in his hair for bed. It felt like a step backwards in their relationship and although it hurt, he knew he deserved it.

“Yeah,” Minhyung mumbled and if he hadn’t been waiting for Minhyungs response he wouldn’t have heard it.

“Why don’t both mates bite each other?” He asked. 

It wasn’t an apology, at least not in the traditional sense. It would be something better for them, an explanation, something that before Donghyuck would have been unwilling to give Minhyung and instead would have coated his words in half truths and would have been indirect with Minhyung. He was still being indirect but this time it was different.

“There isn’t a real reason,” Minhyung sighed and reached out for his hand. “The bond holds regardless if one or both mates have the mark, so the Fire Sages didn’t see a point in both mates having the mark.”

“Why the omega then?” He questioned carefully, trying to gauge Minhyungs reaction. He didn’t want to push the alpha especially when he had already upset him today.

“Before it was because alphas were possessive and the one that bears the mark can never mate with anybody else.”

“And now?” He looked at Minhyung although Minhyung ignored his gaze and kept himself preoccupied with the ceiling.

“Now it's because the one with the mark has to trust the other to not kill them when they receive the mark and it's supposed to be the ultimate symbol of trust between mates.”

“Would you trust me to not kill you?” Minhyung eyes squeezed shut for a second before letting out a breath and turning his head slightly in his direction, not yet looking at him.

“Is that something you want?” Minhyung now turned his head to look at him. “To bite me?”

“I don’t think it’d be fair of me to ask that of you.”

“And why not?” Minhyung asked.

“You don’t know what the bite means to me and I don’t even know if there's a difference between our current bond and the one we would have if I did bite you,” He confessed and Minhyung furrowed his eyebrows

“Then tell me, tell me what it means to you. Tell me what you think our current bonds means,” Minhyung whispered.

“I crave you all the time,” he confessed. Minhyung eyes slightly widely and he felt a blush crawl up on his cheeks. “Not like that!”

Minhyung chuckled and he slapped Minhyungs arm lightly and Minhyung laced their fingers together.

“I want to be around you all the time even when we're together, especially when we are together. And before I thought it was because you only bit me and I- but now I’m not so sure it would have been any different if I have bit you too,” he replied truthfully.

“What do you think is the difference?” Minhyung asked

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“You do, otherwise you wouldn’t care about biting me,” Minhyung reasoned.

“Can you-,” He looked at their intertwined hands in between them and Minhyung gave his hand a squeeze. “Do you know what I’m feeling?”

“Only when you let me,” Minhyung replied and he tried to hold his shock in, but it was obvious Minhyung knew when the alpha rubbed his thumb on the back of Donghyuck hand.

“What do you mean?” He asked.

“You usually don’t let me, but sometime you let your guard down and I try not to think about it because I know you don’t want me to know, but it's hard to ignore when I can feel them, you know?”

 _I know_ , he wanted to reply, but he didn’t. Either way he was sure Minhyung understood.

“Then why don’t you- why do you let me…” he trailed off.

“I don’t see a use in suppressing my emotions. I’m not… trying to offend you or anything, but for me, I don’t want to hide anything from my mate, that's what it would feel like if I did and I know that's probably not what you were doing or how you feel about it in general, considering you didn’t know that I could feel your emotions. But that's what it would mean to me, when it pertains to me.” Minhyung said and he knew the alpha was sincere. “I hope that makes sense.”

“Oh,” he said quietly.

“Do you think it’d change anything?” Minhyung asked. They weren’t looking at eachother but it felt like they were now that he knew his feelings were being laid out raw for Minhyung. He hadn’t actively been trying to hold his feelings in and it would feel like a slap to Minhyungs face if he started now.

“I did before, but I don’t know now,” he said truthfully.

“You can bite me, if you want, I wouldn’t mind,” Minhyung sounded sure but he knew Minhyung wasn’t. Minhyungs nervousness mixed in with his own until he wasn’t quite sure whose was whose and it was a trippy feeling to know Minhyung was feeling the exact same thing.

“I want it to mean something when I do,” he replied quietly, even though he knew it would mean something if he bit Minhyung now.

It didn’t matter what it would mean in that moment because he knew that for once he and Minhyung were on the same page.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have much to say about the chapter other than I hoped you liked it. I didn't proofread it as much as I probably would have liked which is a shame, but unavoidable at the moment. 
> 
> Since I never mentioned it before and it wasn't in the tags before I would like to mention that I don't have beta reader. I am the beta reader, lol.
> 
> As always I hoped you enjoyed the chapter and I hope you stay safe!


	8. Could It Happen To Me Too?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> I'm back with another chapter, it's a bit shorter than the last few have been but I hope you still like it!
> 
> Edit 1/8/21: This chapter and previous chapters have been edited, nothing has changed plot wise although some chapters/scenes are more heavily edited than others.

Minhyung approached him like he always had. Wary.

A purpose was clear from the way that Minhyung was furrowing his eyebrows and Minhyung looked to be in thought as he approached him. He knew that whatever was going to come out of Minhyungs mouth was going to make him uncomfortable, how much so, he didn’t know yet.

“Do you know how to bend?” Minhyung asked when he was close enough to him and far away enough from the entrance of the garden that nobody would hear the question. Minhyung’s tone was cautious, like he knew the implication behind the questions, like he knew the answer, he just didn’t want to offend his mate. The observation was hidden in the way the question was asked, _do you know how to bend_ , not _can you bend_. “You’ve lived here for months and I’ve never seen you bend, I was just curious.”

He could lie to Minhyung and tell him he couldn’t bend, even if it wasn’t much of a lie because he honestly didn’t know. If he told Minhyung he couldn’t bend then he was sure Minhyung would drop the subject and never mention it again. He could also lie and tell Minhyung he could bend, but he was sure even if Minhyung didn’t ask further questions sooner or later Minhyung would realize he was lying. So he went with the truth.

“I don’t know if I can bend,” his voice was unintentionally small, barely above a whisper, but Minhyung heard him and didn’t judge him.

“You’ve never tried to?” Minhyung asked carefully, Minhyung’s voice low to match his own. The question was a testament to how considerate Minhyung was trying to be, never assuming.

“I’ve never been allowed to,” he confessed. 

They looked at each other, questions evident in Minhyungs eyes, but not anywhere else, the questions weren’t threatening to come out and that's what he had always appreciated about Minhyung, he never felt pressured to reveal anything to the alpha. “Omega’s aren’t allowed in the Northern Water Tribe, I’ve heard they are in the South but I’ve only ever heard rumors. I know some omegas that have tried it secretly, but I’ve been watched my whole life, I just never dared try.”

“Do you want to try?” Minhyung asked.

“To bend?” He questioned, not completely sure if Minhyung had something planned or how far Minhyung had thought out this conversation.

He couldn’t say he was particularly curious to try, he had gone eighteen years being told it was wrong for omegas to bend, he himself had even felt that way before he came to the Fire Nation, but ever since he saw Yeji firebend, he realized the reason the wolves of the Water Tribe were oppressive of the omegas.

In the Northern Tribe bending was treated as a weapon and omegas weren’t meant to wield weapons, but when he saw Yeji fire dancing he realized that bending didn’t have to be a weapon and even when it was, it was still equally as liberating and that's what his nation was afraid of. They were scared that omegas would revolt against them and the alphas and betas wouldn’t be able to keep their chokehold on the omegas.

He hadn’t been curious before his realization but now it piqued his interest. Knowledge was the key to liberation and he was sure that was also why omegas weren’t allowed to further their studies in the Northern Tribe.

“Yeah, I can help you,” Minhyung said with obvious excitement in his eyes. “I can’t guarantee you that I’ll teach you anything good, I am a firebender after all, but we can try to see if you can bend.”

“Okay,” he replied quietly, throwing aside his initial hesitation.

He had decided to trust his alpha more after they talked after his heat. Renjun had been right, there was no point in pretending like he hated his mate when he didn’t. Trusting Minhyung was easy, especially when they had reached somewhat of a mutual understanding of each other, something he and Yukhei had never had despite knowing each other for years. Perhaps it was because he and Minhyung were supposed to be actual soulmates, and he and Yukheis engagement was supposed to have been a mistake.

“We can use the water from the pond,” Minhyung said while stepping towards the turtle duck pond. “When we learn to firebend we often start by preventing something from burning, maybe you can try to stop the water from falling.”

Minhyung used his own hands to scoop up some water and poured it onto Donghyuck's open palm.

“I… I don’t know what to do with my hands,” he admitted after he had awkwardly moved them around, the water escaping from his hold.

“Maybe trying to move the water would be easier. Just do whatever feels natural, that’s important at first, later is when you learn proper technique.” Minhyung suggested. He held his hands out over the pond and focused on moving it and after several seconds of nothing happening, he deflated. “It’s okay, I was really bad when I started, I kept burning my fingertips, my dad almost thought I wasn’t gonna be a good bender.”

It didn’t feel encouraging, a kid being bad at something was cute, but it was laughable in an adult when most people his age would probably have already become masters of their elements.

“How about you try moving your hands while you try to move the water?” Minhyung suggested. He moved his hands back and forth a few times, but still nothing happened. “Donghyuck, I’m no waterbender but I know that if you don’t actually try, nothing will happen.”

Embarrassment came over him at the comment. Minhyung must think he’s pathetic, he’s eighteen and doesn’t even know if he can bend and instead of trying, he gave up after two failed attempts.

“You have to be fluid, you can’t be stiff,” Minhyung suggested. “Water is the element of change, you have to be willing to change.”

He let out a deep breath and he tried to relax. He tried to keep his movements fluid and connected but it felt unfamiliar and he looked at Minhyung for guidance.

"Baby just focus," Minhyung said softly, giving him an encouraging smile. He almost squeaked at the sound of the pet name, now he was embarrassed for a completely different reason. He let out another deep breath, holding his hand out over the water again, this time he closed his eyes and imagined the water moving with the movement of his hands. "Hyuck, open your eyes." 

He didn't do it immediately, fearing nothing was happening and he would be disappointed yet again.

"It's moving!" He turned to Minhyung and Minhyung looked at him with a smile on his face and it was easy to think Minhyung had feelings for him when he looked at him like that. In the back of his mind he knew Minhyung did in fact have feelings for him, but they had avoided the subject and neither admitted their affection.

"You did it baby." Minhyung took a step forward and he delicately cupped Donghyucks cheeks and pressed a kiss to Donghyucks lips. It was chaste, a brief touch of the lips, nothing like what they had shared in their bedroom, but somehow it was more intimate. Minhyung was kissing him without a reason, without a need to please himself and it probably meant more to Donghyuck then it ever would to Minhyung. 

“Thank you,” he replied breathlessly after they pulled away from each other.

“Congratulations, you’re a waterbender!” Minhyung looked at him with adoration in his eyes and he knew he had long given up trying to fight his feelings.

\---

“I heard you and Minhyung were waterbending today,” Renjun said, giving him a look. He was still trying to figure out if it was a good or bad look.

“We were,” he admitted and although it hadn’t been a secret, after all they were bending in an open area of the palace, but he still felt like Renjun had caught him doing something he wasn’t supposed to. 

He hadn’t learned much besides very basic things that didn’t require much technique. Minhyung had told him he would get some waterbending scrolls to aid them in learning. Minhyung had also said he would try to look for a master, but even he knew it was unlikely, waterbenders were rarely found outside the Water Tribe and if they were, they were in swamps or wetlands, not in the Fire Nation. Even if Minhyung happened to find a waterbender, they would probably be from the Northern Tribe and no waterbending master from his tribe would ever dare teach an omega.

“I thought you said you weren’t going to tell him,” Renjun said with what he deduced to be anger in his voice.

“I thought you told me to tell him,” he threw back at Renjun. 

Renjun was being pissy, but he’d let it pass for now. Renjun had just spent a heat alone because Jaemin hadn’t wanted to mate with Renjun yet. He too would be pissy if Mark would have rejected him during his heat, although he and Minhyung were mates already so it would have been different. But even so he was going to let Renjuns behavior pass for now.

“I did, but I also didn’t think you would actually tell him,” Renjun said, voice a bit more calm now. 

“He kind of just asked, I wasn’t really intending to tell him,” he told Renjun and Renjun nodded in response.

“Have you told him yet,” Renjun asked, giving his stomach a pointed look.

“I just told you I did,” he said even though he knew Renjun wasn’t talking about the bending anymore. It was a fruitless effort when he knew Renjun would still ask, even if he was obviously trying to avoid having this particular conversation.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Renjun persisted. He looked down into his cup of tea. It was extremely bitter, but he wasn’t going to take any chances, not with how often he and Minhyung liked to fool around.

“It’ll break his heart,” he replied and it would. Minhyung wanted a child, he knew Mark did with the way Minhyung caressed his stomach after they had sex, even if Minhyung knew he wasn’t going to get pregnant. At least not now.

“Maybe, but he has a right to know,” Renjun tried to reason. 

“There was nothing to know, I made sure of it,” he replied and Renjun shook his head again.

Maybe Minhyung did have a right to know, but he didn’t think it was much of a difference from what he was doing now, the only difference was that, then he had drank the tea after he had sex and now he drank it as a preventative measure whether he did or didn’t.

“What about now?” Renjun made a point of looking at his tea.

“He knows about that, we agreed to it,” he replied. 

They had talked after his heat about kids. He knew they would have to have them eventually, afterall they were royalty and were expected to have an heir, a firebending alpha, but not necessarily now and that's what they had agreed on. Sex was nice, especially outside his heat and it was something they had decided they weren’t going to give up now. So the option was simple, he drank the tea and Minhyung knotted him as much as they wanted.

“I still think you should tell him,” Renjun let out with a huff.

“I don’t see why I should, we agreed to wait to have a pup, it's not like I’m going against his wishes,” he said and Renjun shook his head.

“Maybe, but you’re also not telling him the truth,” Renjun said and he resisted the urge to groan. They were just saying the same thing to each other at this point, it was fruitless to try to argue with Renjun.

“Why are you acting this way?” He asked. 

“You’re… getting comfortable,” Renjun said and he opened his mouth to speak, but Renjun held his finger up. “Which isn’t a bad thing. I _want_ you to be more comfortable here, I obviously don’t want you to feel like a trophy Prince Minhyung received for winning a war, but I’m worried about you.”

“Oh,” he said a bit dumbfounded. “I don’t think Minhyung would hurt me, if that's what you’re worried about.”

“Prince Minhyung is nice, he’s only _been_ nice to you and that's what I’m afraid of. I just… I want you to not let your guard down yet, I just don’t have a good feeling,” Renjun warned.

“Then when should I?” He asked and Renjun stayed quiet. “Jun, I can’t just live my whole life with my guard up, I’m tired of it Jun.”

“If not, then just be careful. You spent your whole life protecting your heart, I just hope Prince Minhyung isn’t the one to break it,” Renjun replied.

“He’s the only one that can at this point, he is my mate after all,” he reminded Renjun.

“Heartbreak comes in many forms, Hyuck, not just romantic,” Renjun said shaking his head.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he assured Renjun, even though he couldn’t see Minhyung breaking his heart in the future.

\---

“I’ve been thinking,” Minhyung's voice was loud in the quiet of the room. His head was resting on the olders chest and Minhyung was holding him tight to his body, it was nice. 

Minhyung had started scenting him recently. At first it had embarrassed him when he walked around with Minhyungs scent overpowering his own. It was one of the only things he knew the Fire Nation and Water Tribe did for the same reason. It was a claim, like the mating mark but that only scratched the surface of what it _could_ mean. It meant alot of things and for a lot of mated couples it meant something different, but for them it was trust. Minhyung didn’t _have_ to let him scent him back, but Minhyung did.

“About what?” He asked, his voice came out muffled due to his face being buried in his alphas chest.

“Full disclosure, I talked to Renjun about this,” Minhyung nervousness evident in his voice. It sent him into a bit of a panic and he had to stop himself from letting the emotions filter through the bond and through his pheromones. 

He trusted Minhyung more now, but he didn’t trust his own emotions yet and it was something Minhyung was understanding of and hadn’t questioned him about. He didn’t ever let Minhyung feel his emotions intentionally and Minhyung didn’t mention his emotions that did manage to escape from his tightly spun web.

“Okay, what is it,” he kept his voice even and Minhyun started to rub his back.

“Mates usually go on honeymoons after their wedding in the Fire Nation,” Minhyung said, a bit hesitant. “I didn’t want us to go after our wedding because there's a lot of expectations when it comes to honeymoons here, so I didn’t want you to think I was expecting to bed you or anything like that.

“I also didn’t know if honeymoons were a thing in the Water Tribe and I didn’t want to force you to do something that you didn’t want to or you were unfamiliar with, especially since we barely knew each other back then,” Minhyung rambled.

“You want to go on a honeymoon?” He asked Minhyung. It seemed like the obvious assumption, Minhyung wouldn’t start randomly talking about a honeymoon if he didn’t have a reason and it seemed like the obvious reason.

“Only if you want you,” Minhyung replied. He knew Minhyung was trying to be mindful of his comfort, but it did make him sad that Minhyung only did things he wanted to do and sometimes he felt it was unfair to the older.

“I want to hear from you first,” he told Minhyung, not wanting the alpha to be swayed by his own opinion.

“I think it would be a great bonding experience,” Minhyung said slowly. “But it's also not the only way for us to spend time together, so it's really no pressure to go.”

“What did Renjun tell you about honeymoons in the Northern Tribe?”

“He didn’t really, he just said it wasn’t too much of a thing, but some mates still did go on them. He said something about the tundra though,” Minhyung said, shifting around a bit.

“Do you know about the Northern Lights?” He asked Minhyung.

“I’ve heard about them, very little, but I know they have strong spiritual energy,” Minhyung answered.

“Well it's not the lights that have the energy. The North Pole has a lot of spiritual energy in general and so does the South Pole, but just more unbalanced in the South for some reason, but that wasn’t my point,” he rambled. He sat up a bit, leaning on his arm so he wasn’t lying on Minhyung anymore and they were looking at each other. “My point was that there isn’t much in the North Pole besides the capital and well some couples find the Northern Lights to be romantic, and if they are adventurous some couples take a honeymoon trip through the tundra to see them.”

His parents had gone to see the lights after their wedding, but hadn’t made it through a blizzard in the tundra and had turned around before they even made it halfway through. Mingyu had always spoken about taking his betrothal, a nice omega named Wonwoo, once they got married, but Wonwoo had never been a fan of the idea. Mingyu was supposed to get married at the end of the summer and sometimes it saddens him that he wouldn’t be able to be at his brother's wedding.

“Were you… planning to?” Minhyung asked hesitantly. It was a laughable question, but he didn’t laugh and instead shook his head.

“No,” he replied, trying to remember if honeymoons were even a thing in the Earth Kingdom, but he drew a blank. “I don't think Prince Yukhei even knew about the Lights.”

They looked at each other for a second. The look in Minhyungs eye was soft and didn’t hold any jealousy and for a fraction of a second it made him feel guilty that he even thought Minhyung could possibly be jealous when they had already spoken about it.

“Would you have liked to go?” Minhyung asked.

“If you and I would have had more time in the North Pole, yes, I would have probably liked to,” he answered sincerely.

“We could still go,” Minhyung seemed enthusiastic. 

“You’d have to ask first,” he said. He wasn’t sure if his father would even consider letting them, he had expected to never come back, the _tribe_ had expected him to never come back

“But it's your home,” Minhyung said, confusion in his voice.

“Minhyung, it stopped being my home the second I walked down the bridge to the Spirit Oasis,” he confessed, although he was sure that the Water Tribe had never been his home, at least for as long as he could remember. “I am an extension of you and that means that I am as much of a foreigner to the Water Tribe as you are. I will not be allowed in the gates unless you ask beforehand and even then I don’t know if the chief would let me through.

“I would have liked to, but I understand that I can’t,” he finished. There were many things he knew he couldn’t do and he didn’t see a sense in thinking about them.

“But-,” Minhyung continued. He knew Minhyung wanted to ask more questions but instead the alpha changed direction, “We obviously don’t have to go on a honeymoon, but I was just throwing the idea out there.”

“It seems like a good idea,” he replied. “Where do you want to go?”

“I hadn’t really decided yet because I obviously wanted your input,” Minhyung explained.

“Okay, so where were you thinking of?” He asked.

Minhyung's smile immediately brightened and the alpha began to ramble enthusiastically about what he had planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys liked the chapter!
> 
> Big things happened, questions were answered, lol. Donghyucks a waterbender, yay! I contemplation making Donghyuck a nonbender because as I was thinking over the last few weeks, nonbenders are just as good fighters, if not better fighters than some benders, for example the kyoshi warriors, mai, ty lee, asami, the equalists, and more that weren't stated (in both atla and lok). But Donghyuck was always supposed to be a waterbender so I decided to keep it this way. The bending scene was actually one of the first things I wrote for this fic (before I even had the prologue done) and its actually kind of surprising that I didn't change much to it and it fit well in this chapter.
> 
> In the second section I talked about some sensitive things. Just to clarify since Donghyucks doctor visit wasn't included in this chapter, after his heat Donghyuck drank a tea that was essentially like a morning after pill, which is supposed to stop conception from happening, I don't consider that to be an abortion nor do I consider any other form of contraception to be an abortion, which is why I didn't tag it.
> 
> For the third section, I made up the honeymoon thing about the northern lights, although if you watched lok you know the northern lights are canon, I hope that's not considered a spoiler. But kudos to you if you can guess where they're going for the honeymoon, lol, it's probably the most obvious place possible, in my opinion at least, but I am the one writing this fic so everything does seem predictable to me. 
> 
> As always thank you for reading!


	9. They Are More Beautiful If They Are Few

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello readers!
> 
> This chapter took longer than expected for many different reasons. I've had a lot of things going on in my life, some more serious than others. I usually try to update in less than two weeks and it's been more than three. I'm not sure how long the next chapter will really take considering that I've been preoccupied and I had been kind of unmotivated to write for this fic despite having outlined this fic and this is probably because I kind of find chaptered fics daunting to write. 
> 
> Despite all this I hope you do enjoy the chapter, because I still do enjoy writing this fic. Happy reading!
> 
> Edit 1/8/21: This chapter and previous chapters have been edited, nothing has changed plot wise although some chapters/scenes are more heavily edited than others.

“I’m tired,” he let out as soon as his back touched their bed, well Minhyungs bed really.

He officially deemed he hated traveling on navy ships, they made him dizzy and it didn’t help that they had taken a smaller ship that seemed to rock every time so much as a gust of wind hit it. The trip didn’t take long, thank Tui’s gills, and when they disembarked the ship he almost blurted out that they should walk instead of taking the palanquin, he didn’t, but riding the palanquin was better then being on a stupid ship. 

“Same,” Minhyung replied, flopping in the spot next to him. “We can wake up at noon tomorrow, if you want, there's no one here to judge us.”

“Only Johnny and Renjun,” he said and Minhyung groaned at Johnny's name. 

“Johnny has some omega _friend_ here, hopefully he goes and hangs out with her in the morning,” Minhyung grunted out. 

“Isn’t he your guard, shouldn’t he be with you?” He asked, although he supposed Johnny did deserve a vacation.

“He’s not my only guard, silly,” Minhyung turned to lay on his side, he felt Minhyungs gaze on his cheek and he turned his head to meet it.

“He seems to always be there, I guess I just forgot,” he said. When he imagined Minhyung he always imagined Johnny behind him, which he knew really couldn’t be the case because there was no way Johnny was guarding Minhyung all day every day. 

“He’s always where it matters, it's kind of strange,” Minhyung said, voice trailing off a bit. “Enough about other alphas,” Minhyung teased. “We should probably get some rest.”

He hummed in response and it didn’t take long for sleep to come over him.  
\---

He disliked a lot of things about the Fire Nation and one of them was definitely the heat.

Why he agreed to go on a honeymoon on a humid beach was beyond him, but he was sure it had to do with Minhyungs enthusiasm to come in the first place. The good thing was that they were at least on a private beach, the perks of his mate being the Fire Prince. 

“We should make a sand castle,” Minhyung suggested. “You’ve never been to a beach, so we have to do beach things.”

The fact that he had never been to the beach had in fact been another one of the contributing factors to agreeing to come to Ember Island. He hadn’t known what to expect so he hadn’t known if he would have rather gone to a more touristic place in the Fire Nation. Although he doubted he would have ‘picked’ somewhere else when Minhyung's eyes had practically lit up at the idea of coming to the Island.

“Like what?” He cocked his neck to the side. Minhyung gaze lingering on the exposed skin and the mating mark that rested there. Before they had left the beach house it had been red and a bit raw. Minhyung bit him often, almost too often, but they liked it and so did their inner wolves, so it wasn’t a habit he was trying to get Minhyung to break, but the staring was, he felt naked under Minhyungs gaze and oftentimes his heart pounded loudly in his chest at just the idea of Minhyung looking at him. 

“Sand castles, seashells, swimming, stuff like that,” Minhyung replied, tearing his gaze from the mark and instead meeting his gaze.

“Oh show me the way, Sifu Minhyung,” he teased. A blush began to form on Minhyungs cheek and he was sure if he were to ask, Minhyung would say it was due to the humidity. 

He found out swimming wasn’t particularly fun, especially because he didn’t know how to and panicked after a few seconds of his feet not touching the ocean floor. He felt like he would drown and although Minhyung made sure he didn’t, they ended the swimming lesson short. So they instead stood in chest deep water and occasionally started splashing each other and would only stop when one of them (usually him) would start aggressively spitting out the saltwater. 

He found out Minhyung was a horrible sand castle builder. Their sand castles crumbled a second after Minhyung removed the bucket that Minhyung said would make the process a lot easier. They resorted to attempting to pile on wet sand on top of each other to make the castle and the end result wasn’t pretty, but not a complete fail. They set out to make a moat around the castle and Minhyung ended up knocking the sand castle over on accident. Minhyung later admitted to Johnny usually being the one incharge of the sand castles when they were younger and it made sense.

They collected seashells although he didn’t find them to be too interesting, but Yeri would and she would definitely want a souvenir from the trip. Johnny joined them after lunch and laughed at the remains of Minhyungs sand castle, before helping them make a new and improved one. 

“This would have been much easier if I was a sandbender,” Minhyung let out and they both raised an eyebrow at him.

“You’re not an earthbender, you idiot.” Johnny lightly slapped the back of Minhyung's head, before turning to him and saying, “No offense.”

“None taken,” he said quietly, wondering if he should be offended because Johnny insulted his mate. He settled on a firm no.

“Why don’t you go hang out with your girlfriend?” Minhyung mocked and Johnny made a face.

“She's definitely not my girlfriend,” Johnny replied, his hands in fists. “Besides I have a date back home.”

“Who?” He asked out of curiosity when it was obvious Minhyung wouldn’t ask, although it was probably because Minhyung didn’t need to.

“An alpha,” Minhyung answered for Johnny, a smug expression on his face. Johnny shook his head and went back to making the sand castle.

Relationships between alphas weren't prohibited, at least not in the Water Tribe, but it was uncommon and often looked down upon. He didn’t like to judge other people, especially given his own predisposition, but it wasn’t exactly something he would have thought Johnny would be into.

“Oh, I didn’t know you were into alphas,” He said slowly, trying to gauge Johnny's reaction. Johnny was unreadable as always, the corners of his lips slightly twitched but the rest of his face stayed calm.

“Don’t worry Prince Donghyuck, I’m not interested in Minhyung,” Johnny jokes, he felt a bit of the tension melt between them, but only a bit. Johnny looked like he wanted to say something else, but they weren’t familiar enough with each other for Johnny to talk back to him. “I don’t really look at wolves based on their gender and I don’t know, personality matters more to me than anything else.”

“That’s good to know,” he said, he felt naked under Johnny's careful eyes. 

“There's actually something I wanted to talk to you guys about,” Minhyung blurted out, likely to ease the awkwardness.

“Both of us?” He asked quietly, now regretting asking who Johnny was going on a date with, it soured the mood and he was sure his pheromones were all over the place and nobody liked having to smell a distressed omega.

“Well I kind of wanted to speak to you about this first,” Minhyung ran his fingers through his hair. Minhyung had let it down outside for the first time, probably due to the fact that Minhyung had left the guards on the other side of the beach house, not allowing them to come past the entrance. “I probably should have, to be honest.”

“It's okay, you would have told Johnny anyways,” he held out his hand for Minhyung to assure him and Minhyung held it without hesitation. 

“I want to get married again,” Minhyung blurted out.

He didn’t let go of Minhyungs hand, but he did involuntarily loosen his grip. It was impossible that Minhyung didn’t feel the way his heart got stuck in his throat. He didn’t say anything, not trusting his own voice enough to not shake at whatever response he could muster up.

“Minhyung…” Johnny said, their gazes meeting and only then did Minhyung understand the implication of his own words.

It wasn’t uncommon in the Fire Nation for nobles to have multiple omega mates, especially for someone like the Fire Prince. Minhyung's father was the only Fire Lord in centuries to not have more than one mate. In the Fire Nation only the first mate was recognized as the Fire Lord's omega and only their children could one day be crowned Fire Lord, the rest were what the Water Tribe would consider concubines, the only difference was that in the Water Tribe the concubines didn’t have the mating mark. 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Minhyung replied quickly, in a bit of a panic. “I want us to get married again.”

“We’re already married…” He said slowly, not sure if Minhyung was coming up with a lie to cover up his previous words. 

“I know, but I was thinking, we got married then because we had to and now I was hoping it’d be different,” Minhyung trailed off at the end, losing his initial confidence. “Its a stupid idea, I probably shouldn’t have said anything.” 

“It’s not,” He tightened his grip in Minhyung's hand again, he threw a glance in Johnny's direction and he realized Johnny was looking away, probably trying to give them as much privacy as one could give being three feet away from them. It was easy to ignore Johnny despite this, the only perk of being watched his whole life. “Do you remember the necklace you kept telling me to wear when we first met?”

Minhyung nodded in remembrance. 

“I never intended to bring it with me, but Renjun did because he wanted to be able to show it to our children,” he said. It was a bit embarrassing to speak about children, although not much considering that it was inevitable considering their position. “We have a tradition in the Water Tribe where wolves give the wolf they’re intending to marry a hand carved pendant. It's just a thought in case you wanted to make this legit.”

Minhyung nodded, probably storing the knowledge in the back of his mind. Impromptu plans were made, more logistics than anything which was probably why Minhyung wanted Johnny to be there in the first place and it was easy to get tangled into Minhyungs smile and feel a happiness in his heart that he didn’t really care anymore who it truly belonged to.

\---

Despite the fact that he and Minhyung had sex more times than he could honestly remember, it felt different every time, even more now as Minhyung gently set him down on the bed. 

As soon as Johnny had left them alone, their hands had been on eachother and Minhyung had resorted to carrying him across the house. He wasn’t even sure who had initiated it, he supposed it didn’t really matter when his body was tingling from his alpha's touch. They were on a honeymoon and as Minhyung had said, there were many implications behind a honeymoon. 

Minhyung crawled on top of him, the alpha not pressing much weight on him and although they both knew he wouldn’t break, Minhyung liked being gentle when they weren’t under the influence of his heat hormones and he liked being cared for, even if it was just because of his instincts. 

Moments like these were few and far inbetween, in the palace they always felt listened to and within reason. The guards stood on the other side of the door in the palace and he’d have to hold himself back because although he was very obviously mated he didn’t like the whispers of how he was just a breeding mare for the Fire Nation’s Crown Prince. His restraints didn’t stop the whispers, but it allowed him to look at the Royal Guard without feeling too much of a need to hide behind Minhyung. 

Here they didn’t have the Royal Guard on the other side of the door, there were a few doors between them, but it was the most alone they would probably ever be. In a semblance of what it would be for them to be a normal couple, for them to live in their home where they didn’t have to worry about who could walk by and hear them. Where Minhyung didn’t have to hide himself and could walk outside with his white strands on display.

“You’re so handsome,” he said, running his hands through Minhyungs hair, glad at the fact that his hand didn’t get stuck like it would have in his own hair, getting fingers tangled in hair was definitely not sexy and hurt like a bitch. 

Minhyung grazed his teeth over his neck on the side his mark didn’t reside on. If he didn’t know better he’d think Minhyung was thinking of giving him another mark, one that would easily be visible and not easily covered, one that would leave him tingling all over and pliant under Minhyungs hold, not that Minhyung really needed to bite him in order to leave him tingling or pliant.

“I should be saying that to you,” Minhyung giggled into his neck. “My pretty little Prince.” 

Minhyung slid his under Donghyuck shirt, the shirt was still slightly wet, not having fully dried after they had gotten in the ocean again, the sun had begun to set and the heat of the sun unable to reach him for long enough.

“We should probably get out of these, we don’t want to get sick,” Minhyung laughed. He nodded in response, it wasn’t like they were planning to have them on for much longer anyways.

“You just want to have your way with me,” he joked.

“Only if you’ll let me,” Minhyung said sincerely.

“What about me?” He tried experimentally. “Would you let me have my way with you?”

“If you’re sure, then yes,” Minhyung looked at him with the usual twinkle in his eyes that was reserved for him and for him only.

Everything felt different because it was different, falling in love made everything feel different, like every new touch held more meaning than the last, like the fragility of their current relationship didn’t matter. They were at different stages of falling in love and he wasn’t sure if there would be a moment in which their feelings would catch up to each other or if the Minhyungs feelings would get so buried in his chest that he wouldn’t be able to tell what even he was feeling. It was his current fear, not being able to tell if his feelings were his own or worse that Minhyung wouldn’t be able to tell. 

He supposed it didn’t matter, they were stuck together for the rest of their lives anyways.

“I am,” he replied, tugging on his alpha shirt, Minhyung pulled it off quickly. “We’re doing everything out of order.”

“I would rather do it out of order, then not at all,” Minhyung commented. The statement left an impact on both of them that appeared to mirror each other and he had to let out a shaky breath at the underlying meaning of Minhyungs words. Minhyungs previous nervousness was gone and it made him realize that Minhyung must have thought about it, about the bite.

"Fuck," he whispered against Minhyung lips. "I think I like you."

Minhyung smiled and they kissed, softly, no rush despite the fact they were both hard in their damp pants and equally as desperate. 

"I think I like you too," Minhyung said, voice uneven and maybe it was because of the flowers blooming in their chests or the bond tying them together or the implication of how tonight would in fact be different. 

They lose the rest of their clothes quickly, at a comical speed considering how long it had taken Minhyung to take his shirt off. He crawled down onto the floor and onto his knees. Minhyung came closer to the edge of the bed and came to a sitting position, he rested his hand on Minhyung thigh and the alpha rested a hand on the bed to support himself and the other resting on the nape of Donghyuck’s neck. He planted kisses up the inner thigh of the olders leg and Minhyung chuckled lightly. He wrapped his hand around the alphas budding knot and the alphas chuckle stifled in his throat.

“Stop playing with me,” Minhyung choked out and he gave the older a smile before licking the underside of the older cock and taking the head into his mouth, Minhyung thrusted slightly, more than likely involuntarily, but he didn’t question it. He licked the slit knowing it would make Minhyung oversensitive and the alpha would probably take charge if he focused on the head long enough.

And Minhyung did. Minhyung tangled his fingers in his hair and he knew Minhyung was asking permission to use him. So he hummed, the vibration of his voice causing the older to shiver and twitch in his mouth, but he wasn’t a stranger to Minhyungs reactions and when Minhyung started thrusting rather aggressively, he was ready.

“Fuck,” Minhyung let out. _Language_ , he wanted to reply knowing Minhyung would probably laugh at his pointless reprimand. “You’re so pretty.”

He hummed in response despite the lump he felt in his throat. It was hard to imagine Minhyung found him pretty no matter how many times Minhyung did, in fact, say it. The omegas in the Fire Nation were fair-skinned and thin, and the omegas in the Water Tribe weren’t and he definitely wasn’t. He hadn’t felt ugly before, he knew he wasn’t, at least not by Water Tribe standards, but it was hard to imagine that any high ranking Fire Nation alpha would think he was pretty when he had heard otherwise from other alphas in his new home country. It was hard to imagine Minhyung found him pretty when he looked nothing like the standard of beauty here. 

He wasn’t sure of the validity of the praise Minhyung sang out, but he figured it didn’t really matter, but the sincerity he felt in his entire being felt assuring and it was enough to smooth the lump in his chest and the doubts in his mind.

Sex was simple, almost instinctual. He knew Minhyung touched like he knew his own, he knew what every reaction implied, what every curse word was meant to accomplish and what every sound said about his performance, their performance.

The thing about Minhyung was that Minhyung was soft until he wasn’t. Alphas liked things rough, they were instinctually driven to dominate their partner and despite Minhyung being soft and gentle, Minhyung was an alpha. Minhyung liked to bruise, Minhyung liked to leave marks that only he would see and Minhyung liked having him close.

But the thing was despite being instinctually driven to being rough didn’t stop Minhyung from being gentle. Minhyung paid attention to him, and just like he knew Minhyung, Minhyung also knew what his every touch, every reaction, every curse word and every sound implied. Minhyung listened to him, to his words and his actions.

Minhyung knew when he was close, he didn’t need to vocalize it, but he did anyway for confirmation and when he did, Minhyung bared his neck and it caused him to tighten around the alphas cock, his alpha.

He put his lips on the others neck and licked the spot he felt drawn to bite, he didn’t pick it in haste, knowing his omega would be unsatisfied for the rest of their lives if he disliked the placement of his bite. He didn’t pick it in haste because he had imagined, for much longer than he would like to admit, where he would place the mark if he was given the opportunity, of what it would feel like to bite an alpha.

“Bite me,” Minhyung offered. It felt different being on the receiving end of such words and he wondered if Minhyung had felt the same way he did now all the times the alpha bit him. Afraid and equally exhilarated by the thought of sinking his teeth into Minhyungs neck, knowing he held his alphas life in his hands and he could just as easily end it as he could claim it. 

He didn’t do it right away, instead he waited, he wasn’t sure for what exactly, but when Minhyung leaned into his awaiting teeth and he knew his alpha was close, with the way Minhyungs hips had lost their previous rhythm, only then did he bite the alpha.

The feeling wasn’t exactly what he thought it would be, he felt a stronger pull towards the alpha and he instinctively pulled Minhyung closer towards him, he wrapped his legs around Minhyung tighter then they already were and Minhyung grip on his hips tightened to the point he knew he would have bruises, but he didn’t mind.

They both felt the moment they both came together and the effects of their orgasms heightened by the bond open between them and although it was quite hard to do given his current position, he bared his neck for his alpha and Minhyung without hesitation bit him back. 

It was almost comical for them to properly bond after almost half a year of being together, of being bonded to each other and yet when Minhyung smiled at him, a slight tint of red on Minhyungs teeth, he couldn’t help but think it was worth the wait.

\---

“Minhyung?” He called to the alpha. The alpha was sitting on the edge of the bed and the sun hadn’t even begun to peek its head, it was unusual, but he wouldn’t question Minhyung too much, his mind too hazy to even vocalize all his questions. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

Minhyung turned to him and gave him a weak smile. “I just have a bad feeling.”

“Is it because of the bite?” He said carefully, hyper aware of the way Minhyungs back tensed and then relaxed.

“I don’t think so,” Minhyung turned back towards the window. “I just… Have you ever just felt a pit in your stomach that you didn’t really have a reason to have, but you did anyway?”

“Once,” he said truthfully, he laid back down and waited for Minhyung to ask, but even now, when Minhyung was in a sea of worry, Minhyung didn’t, because Minhyung probably had an idea of why he would have had the feeling.

“And did you end up finding why?” Minhyung asked softly, his voice being overpowered by the sound of the waves hitting the shoreline, but yet he felt more than he heard Minhyungs question.

“I did,” he replied truthfully. “And even though it didn’t exactly feel like it at the time, it was probably the best blessing Tui and La have given me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I say this all the time, but a lot happened this chapter, probably more than you even realize.
> 
> First, Honeymoon! Just for reference, about a month has passed between the events of the last chapter and this one, for the most part time does skip between chapters, more time in some than others. Like I said in the last chapter (if you even read my oftentimes very long author's note), the honeymoon location is very basic, because I am very basic lol. Since I didn't mention it in the chapter, for those of you that did guess, it is Ember Island, I didn't really find an appropriate place to include it without seeming cringy to me.
> 
> Second, I wasn't intending to include anymore smut because I don't really think I'm that good at it and it's not exactly something easy for me to write decently, but like the bonding was important and It wouldn't be right if I didn't mention the experience and I wasn't just gonna do something cliche like Donghyuck biting Mark on the beach or something to make it seem romantic. I had to do it properly and well a proper mating requires a semi-proper sex scene (at least for what I had envisioned for this fic). 
> 
> Third, the ending scene was intended to ominous, which I do hope came off that way and that's all I will say on that.
> 
> As always thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!


	10. Fragments of Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> This is the chapter we have all been waiting for, lol. Well somewhat, I'm sure some of you guys might hate me after reading this, but I have had the angst tag this whole time, I have also been foreshadowing it for a while, so there's that. 
> 
> Edit 1/8/21: This chapter and previous chapters have been edited, nothing has changed plot wise although some chapters/scenes are more heavily edited than others.
> 
> I tried to get this out quicker and was planning on getting this out on/around Mark's birthday, but my computer crashed and I had to get it fixed and trying to write on my phone proved to be harder than anticipated. 
> 
> In case it wasn't clear, there will be angst in this chapter and in the subsequent chapters as well.
> 
> That being said, happy reading!

_The Water Tribe won’t be able to attend, my condolences to the new Fire Lord._

He wasn’t sure why he was expecting more from his father, but he had. He hadn’t expected him to come, but he had expected him to at least acknowledge him in the form of a separate scroll or even sending Mingyu although he knew that wouldn’t happen. 

The citizens of the Northern Water Tribe rarely left the North Pole and his father was not going to let Mingyu or any of his brothers become an example that it was acceptable to leave, because it wasn’t when past chiefs had made the effort to fortify the North Pole in the first place. 

Nonetheless, when he heard of the invitation being sent, he imagined his father rushing to come and even though he knew there wasn’t any possible way that his father would be able to make in time for the funeral and coronation, he still hoped that his father wouldn’t have cared and still made the trip to see his son, his only omega son, but of course he didn’t. Of course logic and diplomacy trumped the ‘love’ for a son that he had promised away many years ago, of course the Water Tribe came before him, after all that was why he agreed to marry Minhyung in the first place.

He had read the scroll for the nth time and each time he had the itch to crumple up the scroll, but he hadn’t, knowing the scroll should probably be preserved in case the Fire Sages wanted to store it in the archives, after all it wasn’t everyday a Tribal Prince became the Fire Lord’s Omega. He returned the scroll to the Sages only after Minhyung questioned why he still had it. 

_Fire Lord Mark, he should say. Minhyungs new name._

Well not yet, Minhyung had to be crowned Fire Lord first.

The thing about the coronation was that it was also Fire Lord Leeteuk’s funeral. If that was a tradition, he wasn’t sure, he didn’t know if Fire Lord’s did retire and it was unclear what exactly was tradition and he sure wasn’t going to ask Minhyung when his father had just died. And yet people still looked at Minhyung like he was supposed to be happy to be crowned Fire Lord.

People were strange and just like some people offered him their condolences for a father-in-law he barely even knew, some congratulated him like he too was supposed to be happy, like being the Fire Lord’s Omega was any different then being the Fire Prince’s Omega. It wasn’t. Besides the fact that now his mate was now going to be crowned the supreme ruler of the Fire Nation, his duties remained the same, to be an accessory to his mate, to be seen, but not heard.

The ceremony was to be held in the Royal Courtyard of the Palace on a raised platform. The royal family wore white and so did the Fire Sages and only the High Sage wore red and he wasn’t sure what it signified or if it even signified anything. There were rows of what he could only assume where the citizens of the crater lined up and holding red flags and they all wore matching red hooded cloaks.

Yerim had kicked and screamed in the morning when the servants had tried to make her get ready for the funeral, the servants had turned to Minhyung for guidance and Minhyung told them to let her be. Despite what Minhyung had told the servants, he had then spoken to her and had coaxed her into coming, but she had asked him to hold her and although he knew his arms would burn from the weight of an eight year old, he agreed. He didn’t want her to regret not going to her father's funeral. 

Jungwoo had arrived in the palace the night before. Jungwoo had requested to see Minhyung and Minhyung ignored him and told him he didn’t really want to see anyone. Jungwoo had listened, but still tried again in the morning, but had been stopped by Johnny this time and it was only when he watched them interact that he realized that Jungwoo and Johnny must have known each other and yet they acted awkwardly. Jungwoo lingered longer then he probably should have after their conversation was over and Johnny eyes had stayed on Jungwoos retreating figure. It was an interesting interaction and if the circumstances had been different he would have asked Jungwoo or maybe even Johnny. 

Jungwoo now stood rigid beside him during the ceremony and it was such a weird contrast to the way he normally was, but he figured grief did that to people. 

“Leeteuk, Fire Lord to our nation for 22 years. You were our fearless leader in the Battle of Ba Sing Se. Our matchless conqueror of the Earth Kingdom and alliance maker of the Water Tribe,” the High Sage spoke to the crowd. “You were brother of Eunhyuk, now passed. You were father of Minhyung. You were father of Yerim. You were uncle of Jungwoo. Husband of Sora, now passed.”

The head sage walked toward Fire Lord Leeteuk’s coffin and took a second to look at it before continuing. “We lay you to rest.” And as the High Sage spoke, the other Fire Sages set the Fire Lord Leeteuk's coffin on fire. In turn Yerim let out a loud cry and buried her head in his neck. Minhyung didn’t turn to look at Yerim, instead walking toward the middle of the platform and kneeling. 

“You are now succeeded by your first born,” the High Sage came to a halt behind Minhyung and put the crown in Minhyungs top knot. “All Hail Fire Lord Mark.”

He felt a dread in his stomach as the spectators all bowed and Jungwoo did too. He followed suit and got down on his knees, not being able to bow as he held Yerim in his arms. Minhyung glanced back and as their eyes made eye contact. He almost didn’t recognize the look in Minhyungs eyes and it was enough to scare him.

\---

Minhyung looked different now. Sure, Minhyung was the Fire Lord now, but that had only happened a few hours ago. 

A coronation ball was being held and Minhyung hadn’t left his office yet, he was sure that Minhyung would and although he knew the last thing Minhyung wanted to do was go to a party, it was something expected out of them. 

Renjun had found out that they wore white to symbolize mourning. It was a bit morbid to be mourning and hold a ball for Minhyungs coronation, but he supposed there wouldn’t ever be an appropriate time to hold one in general. If they let time pass for the wounds of their leaders death to heal, then a ball would seem out of place if months, maybe even years had passed and Minhyung had already been Fire Lord during that time period. 

“Are you waiting for Fire Lord Mark?” he heard Jungwoo answer from somewhere behind him, bringing him out of his thoughts. He hadn’t realized Jungwoo had even come into the library. Jungwoo had probably announced his presence when he came in, but he had been lost in his thoughts. 

“We shouldn’t be alone,” he responded instead, looking towards the door. An omega should never be alone with an alpha that wasn’t their mate and although the Fire Nation was more liberal that the Water Tribe, the same standard was to be held. If someone saw them alone, rumors would be started and it wasn’t something Minhyung needed right now. 

“Probably not, but Johnny wouldn’t say anything,” Jungwoo said and he stored the way the alphas jaw tightened as the alpha said Johnny's name in the back of his head to analyze at a later time. “Besides everyone knows I like alphas.”

“Woojin is an alpha?” he blurted out and immediately covered his mouth at the horror of what he asked. Minhyung teased Jungwoo about Woojin, but he wasn’t Minhyung and although he had always been curious about the guy, he had never asked for details and he shouldn’t have asked now.

“No, an omega,” Jungwoo shrugged. It was all a bit confusing, but he knew he probably shouldn’t ask more and it wasn’t his place to judge. 

“I’m waiting for him to summon me,” he said, changing the topic and he could see the amusement in Jungwoos eyes.

“You’re probably going to have to force him to come out because he refuses to listen to reason, he threatened to have me banished if I so much as thought of him,” Jungwoo said shaking his head and if it had been the Minhyung from a month ago, hell even a week ago, he would have thought it was banter, but now Minhyung wasn’t Minhyung anymore. He couldn’t help but think Minhyung had been serious even if Jungwoo was unbothered.

“He’s… He’s going through a rough time,” he said quietly. It wasn’t exactly an excuse for Minhyung's sudden change in personality, but he hadn’t lost a parent and Minhyung had already lost both. 

“Enough to act like a major jerk even to you?” Jungwoo asked. 

“He hadn’t been a major jerk, just a bit moody,” he defended. It wasn’t exactly a lie, Minhyung had been acting differently, but Minhyung for the most part hadn’t been speaking to him, to anyone really.

“Look Prince Donghyuck, I get you omegas like to protect your alphas, but you have to realize that Minhyung’s been acting shitty and letting him act that way to you is just a slippery slope,” Jungwoo said. “I know what it's like to lose your dad and I know he has the added stress of being Fire Lord, but that doesn’t give him the right to raise his voice at you, and don’t act like I didn’t hear him yell at you earlier for babying Yerim.”

Jungwoos tone didn’t leave room for him to argue and even if it did, he wouldn’t have, because out of all the things he had been scolded for in his life, he felt that this one had been the most unfair. He shouldn't have been reprimanded for wanting Yerim to go to the funeral even if Minhyung hadn't found her attendance to be important enough to bother trying.

“I just wanted her to go, I didn’t want her to regret not being at Fire Lord Leeteuk’s funeral when she got older,” he admitted because he had been dying to let it out ever since Minhyung hadn’t let him explain his actions. Minhyung had had an outburst as soon as they were somewhere private. Apparently he should have let Yerim cry in her room instead of coaxing her out. He had undermined Minhyungs authority and now he was scared to make any decisions no matter how small because he was scared to undermine his alpha again, so he was waiting for Minhyung to summon him in hopes to appease the alpha.

“I think what you did was the right thing to do,” Jungwoo said in a hushed voice and looked around the library as he spoke. “He’s your alpha and he’ll always have power over you, but you also have power over him, maybe not as much, but you do. Please don’t let him spiral, because he’ll do something he’ll regret and you’ll most likely be the one caught in the crossfire.”

“He won’t let me speak,” he admitted something he hadn’t been able to say. Renjun knew because his assistant saw it first hand, but they hadn’t talked about it and the past week had been rough. “I try to talk to him, I try to get him to talk to me, but he…”

He looked away, not really feeling ready to say exactly how he felt when he talked to Minhyung, especially to Jungwoo, an alpha he had met on various occasions but didn’t have a relationship beyond an acquaintanceship with. But Jungwoo looked at him like he knew, like he knew exactly what Minhyung made him feel.

Because Minhyung made him feel suffocated in a way he almost felt was intentional and maybe it was, maybe it was how Minhyung felt and Minhyung wanted him to feel the same way, because they were mates after all and mates share emotions even if Minhyung hadn’t let him feel his though the bond recently.

“I didn’t realize how much I was asking of you,” Jungwoo pursed his lips and let out a long breath. “Forget what I said earlier, just be there for him, in any way he needs.”

And he wasn’t sure if that was even any easier, because he didn’t know what Minhyung needed, he didn’t know if Minhyung needed a rock or a tool or a punching bag. He didn’t know what to do when an alpha lashed out, when _his_ alpha lashed out.

\---

“Would you like to dance?” he heard a girl, whose name he was pretty sure was Naeun, ask Minhyung, She was pretty, unmated and she, like many other omegas, was taking her chances and shooting her shot, because being a Fire Lords concubine was still better than being a nobleman's mate. They didn’t know about the bite that now laid on Minhyungs shoulder, but he doubted it mattered, because it didn’t in the Water Tribe. 

And Minhyung said yes like he had with the other omegas and just like every other time, Minhyung hadn’t even sent him an apologetic glance. 

And he wondered if he too needed to ask Minhyung to dance to get Minhyung attention, because Minhyung had barely even said a word to him, although that was a new norm for them. He wasn’t sure if he should feel offended or if to understand that Minhyung now needed to please more people than he did before.

He still felt on edge thanks to Minhyungs earlier outburst and Minhyungs stiffness once he had come to get him in the library. It had been a bit surprising for Minhyung to come get him himself, but he hadn’t questioned it, instead trailing behind his mate as they made their way to the ballroom. 

He’d never been in the ballroom, it had been a place in the palace overlooked in the small tours Minhyung had given him and even the one Yerim had also conducted. Before there hadn’t been a reason to be in the ballroom, they hadn’t had a reception for their wedding and they didn’t have a reason to celebrate anything and it was too large to hold any everyday functions. It only made sense that now he hadn’t gotten the chance to see it before.

"Do you think the Fire Lord would be mad if I asked you to dance?" Renjun asked him. At some point Renjun had sat down next to him and he hadn’t noticed, it was exactly the most appropriate thing for Renjun to do, but eyes for once were on him. Nonetheless, he really should be more observant, two people had snuck up on him today. 

"I think it'd be pretty scandalising, two omegas dancing together, plus I don't know what the Fire Nations rules are," he said while looking at the dance floor. In the Water Tribe, an omega had to dance their first dance with their alpha before dancing with anyone else and only if the alpha approved. In the Earth Kingdom, it didn't matter who the first person the omega danced with was, what matter was that the last dance was to be had with their alpha. 

“He hasn’t tried to even dance with you, you should also be allowed to have fun too,” Renjun made a point of looking at Minhyung and Renjun shook his head. He didn’t take the bait and didn’t look in Minhyungs direction, he wouldn’t be able to stomach the sight of Minhyung dancing with another omega. “I wasn’t serious about asking you to dance, I was just coming to warn you that Felix is apparently going to ask you to dance.”

Felix was nice, he always had a smile on his face and more importantly Felix was safe. Maybe dancing with an omega would still be scandalising, but not as much if both omegas were mated to alphas. Not as much if both omegas were friends.

“It shouldn’t be a problem.” I don’t know if it’s going to be a problem, was what he really meant and Renjun looked at him like he knew. 

He went back to eating the dessert left in the middle of the table, trying to look preoccupied for the rare glances he knew the attendees of the ball would want to steal in his direction. He now sat alone, Renjun going back to standing against the wall, slowly growing closer to Jaemin in distance and he couldn’t even be mad that Renjun was most definitely having a better time than him.

He wasn’t the biggest fan of the Fire Nations food but at least their desserts were nice. He didn’t eat much sweets back home because he had the tendency to put on weight easily and his servant used to monitor his food intake. He still watched what he ate, despite not being forced to here, but he figured eating sweets to pass the time was a necessary evil.

\--

“Would you like to dance?” Felix asked. It was directed towards him and with enough confidence that he could only assume that it _should_ be up to him to decide if he wanted to, in fact, dance with Felix. It would explain Minhyungs indifference towards him when Minhyung had gotten asked to dance, maybe a dance didn’t mean anything to his mate and he was making a big deal out of something that was trivial.

But still he looked at Minhyung sitting next to him and waited for approval, because it had to mean something that Felix waited for Minhyung to come back to approach him. It had to mean that Minhyung could still reject Felix for him, because they were both omegas and Minhyung was still his mate. 

Minhyung met his eyes and indifference was still evident and although it should have pleased him that Minhyung wasn’t a hypocrite, it worried him.

He nodded and took Felix’s outstretched hand with the most genuine smile he could muster. He could only hope the gesture was convincing enough and it didn’t make Felix question the state of his and Minhyungs relationship. But as much as he hoped it did convince Felix, he hoped it didn’t because he felt desperate for someone to feel what he did, the soul crushing feeling of a mate's indifference and although Felix would probably never feel exactly that, maybe Felix would feel a sliver of it.

Felix led him to the dance floor and he felt weaker with every step he took and he pivoted to face Felix. As he turned, he caught sight of Minhyung walking towards the dance floor with yet another omega and he could only hope Minhyung felt the pang of his heart in his chest.

“Hey,” Felix said as he put one hand around his waist and the other cupping his right hand. “You look pretty with your new crown. Yeji and Eunbin were gushing about it earlier.”

It served as a distraction that he wasn’t sure if Felix was intending to serve, but it was appreciated nonetheless. His crown had been changed after the ceremony earlier, as he got dressed for the ball and he assumed it had been done in private because he wasn’t as important as the Fire Lord and his own coronation didn’t hold as much meaning as Minhyung’s. He was a monarch's consort, not a monarch, he held no power as the Fire Lord's Consort and neither did the crown he now wore on his head.

“You’re the first person to say that,” he said and although it probably wasn’t the appropriate response, he didn’t really care. Felix’s smile faltered a bit at the statement and he knew it had the intended effect and it did make him feel a bit bad that Felix was getting the short end of the stick.

“Fire Lord Mark must have just been busy,” Felix replied in what he assumed was an attempt to comfort him and he appreciated it, but he knew that hadn’t been it. “I can’t imagine being in his position.”

“Yeah, it's a lot to deal with in such a short time frame,” he said and Felix nodded solemnly and the conversation came to a halt. He hadn’t intended to leave a sour taste between them, but he had so much resentment in his system that he couldn’t stop it from leaking out. 

“You don’t look good,” Felix said quietly after a particularly fast spin and it was a bit hard to hear him over the sound of the drums or maybe it was the swooshing sound in his ears. 

“I don’t feel good,” he admitted. His vision was becoming grainier and darkening by the second and he really felt like he needed to lie down soon or else he was going to faint.

“We can sit back down if you’d like,” Felix suggested, Felix steps faltered for a bit but he didn’t stop. He felt an urge to lean into Felix’s embrace, into the warmth of Felix's palm on his back, but he decided against it when he thought about how it would look. The Fire Lord's Omega, seeking comfort from someone else, right in front of the Fire Lord. It didn’t matter if that's exactly what Minhyung was doing at the moment, it would always reflect badly on him.

“I should be fine,” he said, his breath a bit shaky and he felt cold and warm at the same time. He closed his eyes in an effort to regain his strength and it helped only to keep him standing. 

“Are you expecting?” Felix asked abruptly and it took him a second to realize what Felix was saying and it felt like a bucket of cold water was being dumped on him when he did. He hadn’t felt good in the past week and he had chalked it up to being emotionally cut off by his mate and the grief of losing his father-in-law. But it didn’t make sense, because he wasn’t _supposed_ to get pregnant.

“No,” he breathed out and Felix furrowed his eyebrows at him.

“Are you sure? You smell different,” Felix asked and he had to resist the urge to glance in Minhyung's direction because he knew he wasn’t suppressing his emotions and he was scared to see Minhyung reaction or worse Minhyungs lack of reaction to the turmoil brewing inside of him.

“I…” He trailed off and accidentally made eye contact with Johnny, who was standing across the room, in the effort to not look at anyone. Johnny gave him a concerned look, like he was asking if he needed to be saved and he did, but instead he just slightly shook his head only enough for Johnny to notice and turned back to face Felix. “Not that I know of.”

He tried to keep the conversation going, but he felt dizzier by the second and he was sure if he stopped dancing and let the blood rush to his head, he would faint and that wouldn’t do anyone any good, it would only create rumors that he didn’t need, that the Royal Family _really_ didn’t need right now.

“Mind if I cut in? I need to speak to the Royal Consort,” Jungwoo said abruptly from somewhere behind him and Jungwoos sudden presence startled him enough to jump and Felix steadied him when he swayed a bit too much.

“Go ahead,” Felix said. And where he expected relief at the idea of getting rid of him, Felix wore an expression of concern and if he wasn’t on the verge of passing out, it would have touched him.

Jungwoo grabbed him by the waist as soon as Felix let him go. His legs felt gelatinous as he walked off the dance floor and it took everything in him not to let Jungwoo half carry him out of the ballroom. 

Jungwoo led him down the hallway he knew led to the Royal Gallery, but thankfully Jungwoo stopped before they did reach it, he wasn’t sure if he would have been able to get that far. Thankfully someone had thought to put a fancy bench in the corridor. 

“I need to see the doctor,” he told Jungwoo, he put his head between his knees and it helped as much as it didn’t. He was shivering and Jungwoo draping his jacket over him only made it worse, but he didn’t want to slight Jungwoo by taking it off.

“What’s wrong?” Jungwoo asked. At first he couldn’t place Jungwoo’s expression, because it wasn’t one of worry although it mimicked one, but instead one of curiosity. He supposed it was understandable, he was in an empty corridor with his mate's cousin and instead of his mate being the one to express concern, it was someone distant. He too would be curious.

“I think I’m pregnant,” he confessed and instead of feeling a weight being lifted off him, he felt like he was drowning in an ocean of his own self caused problems, because he shouldn’t have let himself fall in love with Minhyung. He should have just let nature take it course and not try to stop himself from getting pregnant, he should have just done what was expected of him, he should have followed through with his life plan because it didn’t matter who his mate what, to what nation his mate belong to and who they would become because what was expected out of him hadn’t change when the Fire Nation showed up at their gates made of the same ice that should have been in his veins, it _hasn’t_ changed and he was a fool to think otherwise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you made it this far and don't totally hate me, I hope you liked the chapter.
> 
> I'm sure some of you may find Marks behavior to be quite out of pocket, for lack of better words, but well many people deal with grief differently and Mark's way is by shutting people out. I also want you to keep in mind that most of the interacts between Mark and Donghyuck we've seen have been at the least semi-private and well things change when you're expected to act a certain way in front of the watchful eye in your country.
> 
> I did struggle with if this was the direction I did want this fic to go, because I kind of didn't want to ruin the relationship I had built up, but In the decided that I would because I did have two arcs possibly three to this story and I wouldn't have much to write about if I made Markhyucks relationship picture perfect. I have also said that I want their relationship to be as realistic as possible and not having bumpy roads is not realistic to me, especially with the nature of their relationship. 
> 
> There is alot things I could say, but I'm also not exactly sure what people actually want to hear. That being said I might add a few tags in the next coming chapters. I haven't exactly decided how I'm going to end the first arc, although I do know how I will end it, if that makes any sense. 
> 
> (As a side note, one of my favorite episodes in ATLA is 'Zuko Alone', judge me if you want. But the coronation of Ozai is shown at the end of the episode and the dialogue of Minhyungs coronation was heavily based off of this scene in 'Zuko Alone'.)
> 
> Nonetheless I hope you guys still enjoyed the chapter, even if it might not have been what you were expecting.


	11. Can you please hold me close?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> This chapter has a trigger warning, which I have also added in the tags (I rearranged the tags too, which was kind of a struggle to do). This chapter contains talks about a miscarriage that may also be mentioned in subsequent chapters, if this triggers you, this is not the chapter for you, or fic either.
> 
> That being said, happy reading!
> 
> Edit 1/8/21: This chapter and previous chapters have been edited, nothing has changed plot wise although some chapters/scenes are more heavily edited than others.

“Do you want me to go get Fire Lord Mark?” Jungwoo asked. The mention of his mate made him take a sharp inhale and he instinctively shook his head no.

“I…” he trailed off. What were the right words to say? _I don’t want Minhyung to know if there is nothing to know?_ Would Minhyung even care? “There's a lot going on right now, he doesn’t need more stress.”

“Do you want me to stay?” Jungwoo asked this time. “Or maybe I should go get Renjun, he’s probably worried about you.”

He was sure Renjun _was_ worried about him, Renjun had expressed his worries the entire time they had been in the Fire Nation, before that too, when he had been promised to Yukhei, his whole life for that matter. But Renjun was his friend and Renjun would try to give him his opinion and he really didn’t want that right now, he needed someone that didn’t ask questions and for now that person was Jungwoo. 

“Can you wait outside for me?” he said, his voice filled with uncertainty. He knew Jungwoo would, he might not be the Fire Lord, but he was the Fire Lord’s Omega and most people wouldn’t blatantly deny him anything, but Jungwoo was a prince, a Fire Nation prince, someone more respected then he could hope to be, someone who could tell him no and he would just have to suck it up because although he was the Fire Lord’s Omega, Jungwoo was the Fire Lords family. But despite this he knew Jungwoo would say yes, afterall Jungwoo had gone out of his way to get him out of the ballroom, but he knew it was likely that Jungwoo wouldn’t actually want to, but nonetheless Jungwoo didn’t make a face when he asked and he appreciated it.

“Of course,” Jungwoo nodded and started walking towards the bench that was outside of the office. He then took a deep breath and walked in. 

They had had to wait for the doctor to show up. Not many people in the palace needed an exam or medications during a ball and she had been off duty and he felt bad for disrupting her evening off, but once the thought had been planted in his head, his possible _condition_ was all he could think of.

She looked up from where she was writing something on her clipboard and she made a gesture towards the chairs and the exam table and he took a seat on the nearest chair.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t visit me in the middle of the Fire Lords coronation ball if this wasn’t urgent, so let's skip the small talk and make this quick,” Taeyeon, the doctor said. “What brings you in?” 

She made him a bit uncomfortable. Betas and alphas tended to do that to him, he never really felt good about being in a room alone with a beta and especially not an alpha he was unacquainted with. She was a beta and she was almost clinical in nature whenever he saw her. He knew it was her job to be unattached to her patients and he would have typically appreciated it, but in a situation like this, he was hoping for a bit of comfort. He would have preferred his doctor be an omega, he felt much more comfortable around omegas, but he could only assume there was a very limited number of omega doctors if any, so he had to suck up his apprehensions for now.

“The tea you gave me,” he hesitated, It was dumb, he shouldn’t hesitate, especially when she was really the only one that could help him, but it also felt like if he spoke his fears into existence, they would come true and he really didn’t need that right now. “How effective is it?” 

“Nothing is ever foolproof, it's effective, but there's always a possibility of conception,” she said. She studied his face before adding, “We talked about this when I prescribed it to you, but in the chance you do conceive there's a high risk of you miscarrying if you continue drinking it.”

“I know, I just…” He felt like crying, he wasn’t opposed to having a baby, but not now. A baby _should_ be celebrated, a baby _should_ be wanted, a baby _should_ be loved and he wasn’t sure if he could fulfill his duties as a father at the moment, because he didn’t want a child right now and he wouldn’t celebrate and he would hold that guilt of not wanting his child for the rest of his life if he was pregnant. “I think I am pregnant... or might have been- I don’t really know. I don’t feel good- not in the I throw up everything I eat, but like I feel feverish, but cold, dizzy and my stomach has hurt for the past week.”

“Okay sweetie,” she nodded her head and she wrote a few things down before turning completely towards him. “Can you lay down with your knees bent for me? I’m going to do a pelvic exam.”

He felt shame as she examined him. Shame at his carelessness, shame at the idea of being alone to hear the news, regardless of what it was, shame at his thoughtlessness for not giving his symptoms much thought before Felix suggested it and shame at the thought of what exactly would be his own reaction if he was pregnant. 

“I would have preferred to give you the news with your mate present, but seeing as you didn’t come with him and the day, I don’t think it’ll be possible,” she paused. “Donghyuck, you had a miscarriage, recently from what I can tell.”

He let out a shaky breath and she looked at him with concern and that alone made him want to let out a sob to accompany his straggling tears. He hadn’t wanted a baby and yet he couldn’t be happy because in some twisted way he had been right, he wouldn’t celebrate.

He would grieve. 

\---

The last thing he expected to see when he opened the door to the doctor’s office was Minhyung, but that's exactly what he saw.

He froze in place before he felt anger wash over him, because he had told Jungwoo not to get Minhyung. And before it had been that he didn’t want to have to add pregnancy to Minhyungs overwhelming list of things he had to deal with and now it was because he really didn’t want to have this conversation with Minhyung. He wasn’t sure if he even wanted to have this conversation period. 

“I didn’t tell him to come,” Jungwoo spoke first from where he stood awkwardly next to Minhyung. He was doubtful that was actually the case, with the way Jungwoo was fidgeting and he didn’t exactly blame Jungwoo. Jungwoo’s duty at the end of the day was to the Fire Lord and not to him. Jungwoo owed loyalty to the Fire Lord and not to his Consort.

“Are you okay?” Minhyung asked, ignoring Jungwoos earlier statement. “You didn’t look good earlier.”

He wanted to throw a snarky comment at Minhyung, he wanted to spit venom onto Minhyung and into their bond, Minhyung had disregarded him the entire time they had been sitting next to each other, the entirety of the ball and now wanted to act concerned, but he couldn’t. Because even if Minhyung did deserve it, he knew it wouldn’t make him feel better, his anger would consume him and it would make him feel worse when he inevitably calmed down.

“I’m fine,” he said softly. “I’m going to go lay down. You can go back to the ball if you want to.” 

He knew it probably wasn’t the ideal thing to do, people would talk about him, about Felix, about Jungwoo and about Minhyung, especially Minhyung and it wasn’t exactly helping that he wasn’t intending to rejoin the party. But, he didn’t wait to hear Minhyungs reply and instead started walking in the direction of their room. He could barely feel his legs and it almost felt like his knees would give out any second and he could only hope it was when he was out of sight of Minhyung.

But the problem was Minhyung was trailing behind him and he braced himself because he really didn’t want to talk to Minhyung right now. He had figured he would lie down and by the time Minhyung came back, he would have figured out what to do, what to say, if he even had to say anything. But now he has exactly the time between now and when they entered their room for him to decide what to say.

Was it anger he was feeling? Perhaps. He was angry at Minhyung, at the world, but more importantly himself. And he knew he wasn’t suppressing his feelings, but it didn’t really matter because his pheromones would have given them away if their bond hadn’t already.

The walk felt short even if he knew it was relatively long and he immediately went into the bathroom with the hopes that Minhyung would be asleep by the time he came out, but Minhyung wasn’t. Minhyung sat on the edge of the bed and it would have been a nice contrast to Minhyungs habit of pacing before they went to bed, but it only caused him to feel uneasy.

“You were crying earlier,” Minhyung stared at him, expression blank and he knew that if they did talk, Minhyung wouldn’t offer any empathy. He stayed quiet and Minhyung sighed. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’m fine,” he whispered. Minhyung pursed his lips but nonetheless nodded in understanding.

“If you say so.” He wasn’t sure if it was meant to sound as harsh as it had, but he supposed it didn’t really matter. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, for Minhyung to insist? For Minhyung to at least offer to listen when he was ready? He wasn’t expecting him to, but the disappointment was still the same.

Minhyung got in bed and just like Minhyung had when they first started to sleep in the same bed, Minhyung slept as close to the edge of the bed as humanly possible and he craved his mates comfort.

But somehow he was more unhappy now then he was then.  
\---

“I think the gold dress with the red embroidering would look best, it would be a nice contrast from what you used to wear as the Fire Prince’s Omega,” Yuna said. “I don’t think the Fire Lord was really a fan of the armor, so I think we had forgo it, unless he says otherwise.”

“That sounds fine Yuna,” he voice sounded shaky even to himself and Yuna managed a grimace. 

“What’s wrong? You don’t like the idea? We can go back to the more traditional clothing, I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable,” she said. It was a bit funny, everyone had always said they didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable but it was almost as if the more time he spent in the Fire Nation, the more uncomfortable he became. 

“No, I think it will look great,” he said. He didn’t exactly want to stand out, he wanted to be in the shadows of his mate, but he supposed if his purpose was to be pretty, then he might as well actually look the part

“Is this about the Fire Lord?” she said, her voice low as she looked around. No one else was in the room, but she was still paranoid. They had developed a friendship over the past months, they spent at least an hour with each other a day, but a friendship with him wouldn’t save her if the wrong information made its way into the Fire Lord's ears. “He just needs time.”

 _Time._ He wanted to scoff. He had given Minhyung time, two weeks of time and although he was sure that wasn’t nearly enough time to grieve the loss of a father, it also didn’t mean that Minhyung mood could just get progressively worse over the time frame, he could barely talk to the alpha without the other glaring at him. He should have known his only opportunity to talk to the older would have been on the night of the coronation ball, but he had been naive and thought Minhyung would listen if he told him it was important. So he had stopped trying altogether, if Minhyung didn’t want to talk, he wouldn’t make him.

He hadn’t told anyone and although he knew it wasn’t healthy, he knew it would feel worse to say it outloud and not have his mate to comfort him. 

“I know,” he replied. “I like the dress, you can make a similar one if you want.”

“I think we should give you a bit of a different look now that your mate is Fire Lord,” she said. It was a laughable idea, like his status had actually been elevated just because Minhyung became who he was always meant to be. He was still a trophy, that Lord Leeteuk had gotten Minhyung, a prize. Although it was laughable, he knew she meant well, he knew she was just trying to do her job. “I know you hadn’t wanted to before, but have you thought about gold with blue embroidering?”

“I don’t know if Fire Lord Mark would appreciate it,” he said honestly.

“How about I make one and you can show the Fire Lord and see what he thinks, you don’t have to wear it in public of course,” she said. He nodded just to please her, because he didn’t really have a reason to object of course, but he also didn’t have a reason to agree. “How about hair? Half up half down? Or did you just want to do a simple bun? Or a ponytail, your hair is quite long now.”

His hair _was_ long now, almost half down his back and it was interesting to actually see the hair resting on his chest. He rarely let it loose, almost always in a high bun when he lived in the Water Tribe, not really wanted to look at it longer than he had to, but now sometimes the hair would get stuck to his face if he sweated a bit too much, or stuck to the gloss that the omegas of the Fire Nation loved to wear on their lips or caught in the earrings that Yuna had convinced him were stylish for an omega.

“A bun,” he said. 

Yerim had recently read a fairytale about soulmate identifying marks and had liken his and Minhyungs hair to a soulmate mark. It had made him feel sick to his stomach and it was now hard to look in the mirror and realize that that's what it was supposed to be. A sign of a blessing, a sign of a true soulmate, a sign of their compatibility, but right now it felt like anything but.

It would have been easier to marry Yukhei, at least then he had known exactly what he was getting himself into.

\---

“Hyuckie! You look so pretty!” Yerim yelled. She was running up to him and he squatted down a bit and he opened up his arms so she could jump into them. He swung her around once before putting her back down. Only Tui and La knew how weak he truly was, he’d have to slowly break the habit because he wasn’t sure if he could keep doing it when Yerim inevitably got older and in turn bigger.

“Thank you sweetie,” he told her, patting her head and she giggled.

“Minhyungie is looking for you,” she said. _Minhyungie_ , it made his heart clench and his chest hurt, because Minhyung was gone, in name and in his spirit. Minhyung was Mark and Mark was harsh, unloving and mean. 

“Fire Lord Mark,” he scolded lightly and she gave him an eye roll, he almost wanted to give her one back but he knew she would start making faces at him and he was petty when it came to her, he would make a face back and then they wouldn’t stop. He would ultimately cave first, because she was simply too stubborn.

“That's only in front of the old people,” she replied and he wanted to laugh, but he kept a stern face and she rolled her eyes again. “Fire Lord Mark is looking for you,” she said begrudgingly.

“That’s better,” he replied and she grimaced a bit. “Where is he sweetie?”

“In his office,” she said cheerfully, her previous mood forgotten. Had he been like that when he was her age? Probably not, but he supposed she did have a much more normal childhood then he did.

“Thank you, stay out of trouble. Don’t let Nayeon trick you into doing anything too crazy,” he said, knowing the ten year old likes to get into trouble or more accurately, convince Yerim to do something that would get herself in trouble and Nayeon would then look like the good, innocent kid.

“Never!” she huffed out and she stalked off and he laughed in her direction before turning to head in the direction of Marks office. That was until he nearly ran into Johnny, he hadn’t realized that Johnny had even been there, but that was afterall Johnny's purpose to blend into the background until he was needed, which wasn’t often. In a way, they weren’t much different. 

“The Fire Lord sent me to get you,” Johnny explained and he nodded. 

_Fire Lord_ , it was weird to get used to. Sometimes people would address Minhyung as only Fire Lord and he would think they were talking about his father-in-law and then Minhyung would talk and he would feel the same sense of dread he was beginning to associate with Minhyung.

“Okay, Yerim said he was in his office” he stated and Johnny nodded in affirmation. He nodded back and started walking when Johnny cleared his throat.

“I actually wanted to talk to you,” Johnny said.

“Ok,” he tried to say with an even tone, but he knew he was doing a poor job. 

“I know,” Johnny stated. In its self the statement didn’t reveal much about what Johnny was talking about, but the tone Johnny used and the fact that he was actively trying not to think about it made him take a sharp breath in and Johnny took an involuntary glance at his stomach and he let out a bitter laugh. “I won’t tell him or anyone, but I just wanted to let you know that I’m here if you need someone to talk to.”

“Did Jungwoo tell you?” He asked although he knew it didn’t make sense, Jungwoo didn’t know anything for sure and it seemed like the two weren’t on speaking terms.

“No, I…” Johnny trailed off and he looked at Johnny expectantly. “I know the scent, it's like expecting, but faintly tainted, it's hard to catch unless you’ve smelled it before. I… I wanted to tell you, but it really wasn’t my place, I don’t think you would have believed me, if I’m being honest.”

“I would have.” He said it with a certainty that even Johnny hadn’t expected. “You’re actually the only person that knows, you know besides Taeyeon.”

“You should tell him, he’d want to know,” Johnny said sincerely and he wouldn’t have doubted Johnny if this had happened a month ago, heck, even two weeks ago. But now things were different and it felt like a better option to keep it to himself.

“I don’t know if I’d want him to,” he said instead.

“And that’s your choice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank your reading!
> 
> I hope you guys liked the chapter, I had hoped to have updated quicker because this fic now has 500 kudos and i wanted to thank you guys but it wasn't really possible, but today I had some time to write so I quickly finished up this chapter, so i'm sorry if its a bit rough. I don't have much to say, so I'm gonna keep this author notes short (I know, a shocker)
> 
> Thank you guys for reading and I hope you liked the chapter, I hope to see you guys in the next one!


	12. Fire Sparks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> This is a lighter chapter, not as much angst, but a very important one, although not for the immediate future in this fic timeline. One thing to note is that the first scene in this chapter is literally right after the scene from the last chapter. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy the chapter and Happy Reading!
> 
> Edit 1/8/21: This chapter and previous chapters have been edited, nothing has changed plot wise although some chapters/scenes are more heavily edited than others.

He knocked lightly on the door of Minhyungs office and he felt awkward doing so. The Guards were standing on either side of the doors and they had been throwing glances at him ever since he turned the corner and he came into sight.

He wanted to step back, away from the door so he wouldn’t be so close incase Minhyung decided to open them but that would also mean having to stand awkwardly as the Guards tried to pretend they hadn't been looking at him earlier. 

_Come in_ , he heard from the other side of the door and he clumsily reached for the door handle and opened the door a bit too quickly and Minhyung came into sight, looking at him with an eyebrow raised. He closed the door behind him and stood behind one of the chairs that Minhyung kept in his office, he didn’t sit, waiting for Minhyung to give him permission and when Minhyung nodded, he almost tripped over the chair as he tried to sit down, luckily Minhyung didn’t laugh at him. He was nervous and he wasn’t exactly sure why, maybe it was because he felt like a kid again, getting called into his dad's office without an explanation and feeling like he had to have done something wrong.

“Did you need something?” he asked, voice cracking in the middle of the question and it was mortifying. His unease must have shown because Minhyungs expression soften considerably, although not completely.

“I have to leave,” Minhyung told him.

It wasn’t exactly what he was expecting when Yerim told him to come see Minhyung. Minhyung had been in and out of meetings more often than not and there were times Minhyung wanted him there and there were times when he didn’t. He had assumed now was one of those times, although Minhyung would usually come get him and not have someone else come find him, but things weren’t always so predictable.

He blinked a few times before he realized Minhyung wasn’t going to continue.

“Oh,” he said softly, not trying to sound upset or happy, neither would be good although the former would have probably been better. “Where are you going?”

“Ba Sing Se,” Minhyung said, syllables harsh on his tongue, a bit awkward spoken in the Fire Nations dialect. Minhyung looked at him like he was searching for something, like he was looking for a reaction, like Minhyung was looking to see what he felt about the Earth Kingdom capital and it made him hyper aware of Minhyungs presence in their bond. “I want you to come with me.”

 _Why?_ He wanted to ask. 

A Royal Consort didn’t leave the North Pole in the Water Tribe or the Upper Ring in Earth Kingdom, why would he leave the Fire Nation? But that wasn’t the right question, asking why would only convey defiance, would only convey how uncomfortable he truly felt leaving the ‘comfort’ of the walls of the Palace, how uncomfortable he felt traveling to the place that he had always thought would be his home and not having the Earth Prince by his side. 

“Is something wrong?” He said carefully, knowing there had to be for Minhyung to even consider going to Ba Sing Se. Things were unstable and messy in the Fire Nation, changes in leadership were hard and for Minhyung to leave one week into his new position, well, it wasn’t something that could be taken lightly. 

“Riots,” Minhyung said, tone a bit nasty, but he knew it wasn’t exactly directed towards him. “They think we stole you.”

 _Stole_ , like he was some doll that a kid could pick up off a stand and try to sneak into their pocket after their parents had already told them no, like he was an object that belonged to Yukhei, to the Earth Kingdom, like Lord Leeteuk took Yukhei’s toy and gave it to his son instead. Minhyungs tone wasn’t directed towards him, but it was all the same, he after all was the stolen object, Yukhei’s toy that now belonged to Minhyung, to Mark, to the Fire Nation.

He knew that couldn’t be the only reason. The Earth Kingdom wasn’t a fan of the Fire Nation and nobody would exactly be happy about their enemy occupying their home, he was only a small portion of the problem. He was always supposed to represent a victory and he had, but not for the Earth Kingdom and that’s what the Earth Kingdom was mad about regarding him, not because he was some beloved Prince, because the truth was that he wasn’t in neither the Water Tribe or the Earth Kingdom. The Water Tribe citizens treated him as if he was living on borrowed time and although he was, it still would be nice to feel like a part of your ‘home’, of your culture. 

“Wouldn’t it be worse if I showed up there with you?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” Minhyung said with a puzzled looked. Minhyung was naive, had always been naive, he’d give him that, but Mark was supposed to be the Fire Lord, a monarch, a ruler. But Mark wasn’t being naive right now, he was being stupid. It would be stupid of a monarch to not think of all the implications of their actions, to not think about what it would look like if ‘Fire Lord Mark’ showed up with his stolen bride on his arm and a fleet of stolen Earth Kingdom ships.

“If I showed up at Ba Sing Se with you, it’ll just look like you’re mocking them, like you only brought me to show off your victory.” _Your Prize._ “They’re upset, you have to give them a reason not to be.”

“I can’t just leave you here, it's not safe for you,” Minhyung said. It was the most sincere he had heard him sound in a while and it shouldn’t have made him feel touched or induce butterflies in his stomach, but the truth was, that it did, because at this point Minhyung could do the bare minimum and it would make him happy, it would make his omega happy and it was a bit sad if he was being honest.

“I have an idea,” he offered and Minhyung looked at him expectantly and Minhyung’s gaze held so many remnants of the old Minhyung, that it almost caused his words to get caught in his throat. “I can wear the Water Tribes colors. Let them see me as a separate entity, as someone that is here, in the Fire Nation willingly.”

“And are you here willingly?” Minhyung said, curiosity in his voice, but also a feeling he couldn’t quite place, but he could understand. Minhyung was worried for him, for their bond, for their relationship and maybe even for his life because they all knew what happened the last time Minhyung left a loved one behind.

“I was given a choice, remember. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think I should be here,” he said honestly because it was true. 

He had spent his youth fantasizing about running away from the Water Tribe before his 18th Winter Solstice, traveling the world and falling in love with an Air Nomad, someone that was kind and carefree and more importantly didn’t have any duties to the world and no other worldly attachment besides him. He has spent his youth fantasizing about running off with Renjun and spending the rest of their lives together in a colony where they could start over. He has spent his youth fantasizing about running away from the Upper Ring once he fulfilled his purpose, once he had given birth to an alpha and he would no longer be needed, he would run and never turn back, because he knew he would never be able to raise his own kid in the Earth Kingdom. 

If he _wanted_ to leave Minhyung he would find a way, if he _wanted_ to break their unbreakable bond he would find a way, he would chase the rumors and the tales about the bond breakers hidden in the swamps of the Earth Kingdom. He would chase the rumors of a better life in the Spirit World, of leaving his body behind in the terrestrial world and living among the spirits that didn’t have worries of duties to their people or to the world. But he didn’t want to chase rumors, at least not now, when he still saw the fragments of Minhyung left behind in ‘Fire Lord Mark’, the cracks in the walls that could still be repaired.

“I want you to be here,” Minhyung’s voice cracked and Minhyung squeezed his eyes shut for a second. “I know I haven't been exactly the best… mate… recently, but my feelings for you haven’t changed.”

“Mine haven’t either,” he said quietly. _Should I tell him?_ He wondered.

“Will we be okay?” Minhyung asked. It was such a simple question, but the answer wasn’t because the truth was, he was tired.

“I don’t know Minhyung.” _Mark_ flinched at the sound of his old name and it wasn’t a good sign.

Maybe he would be better off chasing rumors.

\---

He officially hated flying. 

Riding a sky bison was equally if not more terrifying than riding a dragon. How he had let Yerim trick him into riding the thing was really beyond him. He should have known that anything from Nayeon was just a disaster waiting to happen. She had assured him that riding a bison was a much more pleasant experience than riding a dragon. He knew better than to believe anything that came out of her mouth, she had tricked him enough times for him to know better. So instead of believing her, he had looked to Johnny for guidance, but the alpha had only shrugged his shoulders and told him that he had never rode either so he couldn’t really give him an opinion.

Like an idiot he climbed on the thing, with a bit of help from Nayeon and her airbending. And it wasn’t until they were already ascending on the bison that Nayeon had decided to tell him that she too had never ridden a dragon. He had to suppress the urge to strangle her, he kind of needed her to eventually land the bison and he couldn’t exactly trust Yerim to do it, although he didn’t trust Nayeon either. But Nayeon was his best bet after all, the bison was hers.

Why Nayeon was in the Earth Kingdom with them was honestly a mystery, but why she was always in the Fire Nation was one as well. Sure, she was an Air Nomad or whatever, but why anyone would let a ten year old go on a trip without a guardian was beyond him. But whatever Yerim wanted, Yerim got, so Nayeon came too and he got the misfortune of having to act as both of their guardians because Yerim refused to let him out of her sight. 

He felt sick, the two weeks on the ship from the Fire Nation to the Earth Kingdom were worse than the two weeks they spent coming from the Water Tribe to the Fire Nation. Maybe it had to do with the fact that before he thought it would be a one time thing and now he dreaded having to travel back to the Fire Nation on the ship. 

Nayeon had offered to fly them back once the trip was over, but now that he had experienced what the kid was like behind a sky bison, he knew he would have to kindly reject her offer and they would all instead have to get back on the dreaded ship.

“It's a lot easier if you don't think about it,” Johnny told him. The man was everywhere honestly, nowadays it felt like Johnny was more his guard then he was Minhyung’s. Maybe Minhyung had put him up to watching him, maybe it was a way for Minhyung to keep an eye on him and make sure he wasn’t conspiring against the Fire Nation with the Earth Kingdom citizens or whatever atrocity the Admiral had spewed at the Royal Assembly the day before they left. 

People honestly had crazy ideas, he had only ever interacted with a handful of people from the Earth Kingdom, most of which are now either dead or in prison. It wasn’t like he had many people he could conspire with when he was under the watchful eye of, well, everyone.

“That doesn’t really help me,” he said. His hands on the railing of the saddle and he tried his best not to think about how high they were off the ground, but of course Nayeon had to start having her bison do tricks and he felt his stomach drop and the urge to throw up had never been as strong as it was now.

“I can tell them to land, if you want,” Johnny said, throwing a look at where Nayeon and Yerim were sitting on the neck of the bison. He could practically see the heart eyes Yerim was throwing Nayeon and it made him a bit uncomfortable for some reason. 

“I don’t think Nayeon would exactly listen,” he said, thinking of the times he had tried to stop her from jumping in the turtle duck pond only for her to completely ignore him and do it anyways and proceeded to get him wet when the water slashed him and Yerim, he had to get a change of clothes afterwards and Yerim had almost set herself on fire trying to dry her clothes with her bending. It had been a nightmare and of course Nayeon had been laughing the whole time. Sometimes he wanted to ask if he could ban the little demon from the Palace.

“She would, you’re just too soft with her, you can’t let her think you’re a pushover or else she’ll take advantage of you,” he said. It felt like a bit of an insult, but he knew Johnny would never exactly outrightly disrespect him. So instead he scoffed and just shook his head.

“It’s okay, I can put up with it for a bit longer,” he said although he wasn’t exactly sure if he could. He tried to relax, but it was hard when he knew how high up in the air they were.

“Princess Yerim,” Johnny called and he furrowed his eyebrows at the older, but Johnny ignored him and simply looked in the two girls' direction.

“Yes, Johnny,” she replied her head barely peeking over the saddle.

“No more fancy flying, it makes the Royal Consort sick,” Johnny said, his voice neither soft nor hard and Yerim looked at him and scrunched up her face.

“Sorry, Hyuckie!” She said cutely. It was hard to stay mad at her, not that he had been in the first place, but now he felt bad about ruining their fun.

“It’s okay sweetie,” he said, a weak smile on his face and his voice faint even to his own ears and she disappeared, presumably to tell Nayeon to calm down a bit.

He had asked Mark if it was okay for Nayeon to fly her Bison over Ba Sing Se with the intention of Mark coming along, but Mark hand sent Johnny instead. He didn’t exactly mind being watched over, it wasn’t a foreign feeling, but he still had hoped Minhyung would come with him, it probably would have made him feel less anxious to at least have his mate with him, even if they weren’t touching. But instead Nayeon was giving them a tour because she had allegedly been here before. 

The Upper Ring of Ba Sing Se was pretty, there was no doubt in that, but they had also passed through the Lower Ring and it made his heartache to see the living conditions in the Lower Ring. Everyone in the Northern Water Tribe lived well and to see the conditions in the Lower Ring in comparison to the luxury of the Upper Ring, made him feel queasy.

Seeing the Lower Ring had made him think about Yukhei. Lot of things made him think of Yukhei nowadays and especially now that he has actually seen the Royal Palace and Ba Sing Se. 

It was a hard pill to swallow, what could have been, even if he had never truly liked Yukhei. It was a silly thing, he knew Yukhei for sixteen years and yet it only took him months to fall in love with Minhyung and get his heart ripped to shred in more ways than one. 

Yukhei wasn’t a bad guy, in fact he was a great guy, he didn’t deserve to be imprisoned for being born into something that he couldn’t exactly change, for being the son of the wrong guy. Just like the people in the Lower Ring didn’t deserve to live in poverty just because of who they were born to. But the difference was that Yukhei had been living a lavish life before being imprisoned, so there was that.

“Can I ask you a question?” He asked Johnny tentatively. Johnny nodded and even with the affirmation he hesitated because what he wanted to ask was dangerous. Minhyung had once told him that it didn’t matter if he talked about Yukhei, but that was before and now was different. Now they were in the Earth Kingdom and most of the Fire Nation citizens were now doubting his loyalty. “Will you promise me you won’t tell Fire Lord Mark?”

Johnny looked skeptical and in his own right. Johnny didn’t particularly have a reason not to tell Mark whatever they discussed. He and Johnny weren’t friends by any means, they were just cordial with each other, Johnny was Mark’s guard and Mark’s friends, not his.

“I won’t tell him,” Johnny said nonetheless and although he knew he should also be skeptical, he wasn’t. They sat in silence as he worked up the courage to ask Johnny his question. 

“Where is the Earth Prince? Lord Leeteuk said he was imprisoned and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it ever since Mark told me we were coming,” he said and Johnny just looked at him and he was sure it unorthodox to ask, but Johnny was the only person he could ask that could possibly know, besides Mark, but he and Mark weren’t on good terms. So he continued, “I know what it sounds like, but I knew him my whole life and I was brought up on the idea that I would spend the rest of my life with him, I feel like it's only natural for me to be worried about him.”

Johnny just kept looking at him and he looked back at Johnny in return. Johnny had taken off his helmet once they got in the air and it was the first time he had truly seen him without it. Johnny was attractive, he had known that before, and even if he hadn’t, he would have suspected it based on the amount of omegas that would double take when Johnny walked by. 

Johnny was the kind of guy any omega would have crush on and it made him wonder if he hadn’t been so afraid of interacting with alphas in his youth, if he too would have been attracted to someone like Johnny. He had never had a crush and it was an interesting notion, what it would feel like to have a crush.

“Before we keep talking, I need to ask something of you too, Your Highness,” Johnny kept his voice low, barely audible over the sound of the wind rushing past them and the giggling of the two girls. “I ask that whatever we talk about, you don’t mention to anyone and when I say anyone I mean even Renjun. If you can do that for me, Your Highness. I won’t tell Fire Lord Mark.”

 _A pact._ It was fair and wasn’t exactly hard to do, he hadn’t been telling Renjun much in the past few days. 

“I won’t,” he replied solemnly and even if Johnny didn’t believe him, they both held secrets they didn’t want finding their way to Mark's ears. Johnny had more to lose then he did if Mark ever found out he hid his secret for him, Johnny’s strongest loyalty should be to his Fire Lord, not to the Royal Consort and yet here Johnny was, willing to risk it all for him. But he supposed it didn’t make much of a difference, Johnny had already betrayed Mark.

“Did Fire Lord Mark tell you why we came?” Johnny asked quietly and he shook his head. The truth was that Minhyung hadn’t, he told him about the riots, but not the real reason, sure he could have been part of problem, but the thing was that a Consort wasn’t worth much, the only time when they were important was when they carried a baby, he couldn’t have been a huge contributing factor.

“He said something, but the reason he gave didn’t make sense to me,” he said slowly and Johnny gave a slow nod in return.

“There's been a lot of talks about what was going to happen to the government in the Earth Kingdom, particularly what was going to happen to the Earth Prince,” Johnny paused and looked in the girls direction before proceeding. “There's been some talks of executing him, which I honestly don’t think will happen given the fact that he has no war crimes under his belt, he didn’t wage war, his father did. But there's also been talks of releasing the Earth Prince into the Lower Ring. Somehow that information got leaked and the Earth citizens are mad, they think it’ll be a mockery to the Earth Kingdom. They want the Earth Prince reinstated, but with that also comes you.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, not exactly sure how he would now have anything to do with the Earth Princes reinstatement.

“You were engaged to him, naturally the citizens are mad that we ‘took’ their Consort,” Johnny said and he almost let out a chuckle. He didn’t couldn’t mean much to the Earth Kingdoms people, he knew that the second they stepped on Earth Kingdom soil and the way they looked at him once they did a process of elimination on who he could exactly be, the hair and the crown were always a giveaway. 

“But I wasn’t his Consort,” he replied.

“It doesn’t really make a difference, I guess. They want the Fire Nation to give you up and have you live with the Earth Prince,” Johnny said. 

It was absurd how they wanted to use him to humiliate the Fire Nation, how they would want to condemn him and Yukhei to an unmated marriage just to get back at the Fire Nation. And yet he knew they would if they would, he knew how royals liked to play games, and steal brides just to prove a point, the Northern Water Tribe had done it to the Southern Water Tribe many centuries ago, until the royal lineage of the South was gone. 

“That doesn’t make sense, I’m mated to the Fire Lord,” he said, even though he knew it didn’t matter.

“Yeah, that’s the crazy part I guess,” Johnny said.

“But what about....” he trailed off, but he was sure that Johnny knew what he meant. 

“I don't know, he was in the Fire Nation the last I heard, after what happened with Lord Leeteuk he was transferred from the Prison Tower to somewhere more secure.” Johnny told him. 

“Boiling Rock?” he asked. He had heard about it from Yukhei, the Earth King was trying to hatch an escape plan for their prisoners stuck there, the only problem had been that they didn’t exactly know where it was. It was too deep in the Fire Nation to try to scope it out with a scouting team and instead the Earth King had tried to get some of their captives from the Fire Nation to give him information, Yukhei never told him what they had managed to get out of them and he didn’t ask either.

“No, too many people know about Boiling Rock,” Johnny supplied. “If the rebels were able to break into the palace, I’m sure they would find a way to help Yukhei escape from Boiling Rock.”

“Then where?” he asked and he hoped it didn’t sound too desperate.

“There's an uninhabited island in the inner Fire Nation, miles from the nearest island,”Johnny said. “Well at least it was uninhabited, there's a metal prison built into the cliffs on the island, I only know about it because I visited it a few years ago with Fire Lord Mark, all I know is only highly trusted members of the Fire Nation work there, the kind that would never turn their back on the Fire Lord. I can’t tell you for sure if that's where he is, there are many secrets in the Fire Nation, secrets that I truly don’t know, but I can tell you that he wouldn’t be at Boiling Rock.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> There was only two scenes in this chapter, so it might have felt shorter, although it was longer then the past few chapters I've written, I hoped you enjoyed it nonetheless. The change from Donghyuck only referring to Mark as Minhyung before and changing now to solely Mark in the second scene was intentional. There's not much to say besides, Nayeon's an Air Nomad, I know, what a surprise (maybe not, but maybe for some) the first we've seen in this fic, but not the last.
> 
> Just a side note, I might edit some of the chapters in this fic before my next update. I reread one of previous works and kind of cringed at some of writing, so I had to edit it and it just made me think about editing this fic. I haven't decided yet, but just thought I should let yall know in case you notice some things changes in wording, nothing should change plot-wise.
> 
> As always I hoped you enjoyed the chapter, consider leave me a nice comment if you did, if not that's okay too. Hope you continue reading in the future!


	13. Swept into the Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I’m back!
> 
> This has probably been the longest I’ve gone without updating for this fic and I’m really sorry about that. I’ve been quite busy, with school, work and student orgs, it's been a mess. Midterm season never seems to end so I haven’t exactly found too much time to write and when I have I haven't been too motivated to write for this fic. Not to sound like a broken record, but not only is this my longest writing project, but it is also a chaptered fic, which in itself is quite difficult, because when I write oneshots I write when I’m inspired and if I don’t pick it back up until months later, its okay because no one knows they exist, but with this fic in particular, I feel like I’m kind of obligated to write. Writing has kind of felt like a chore and while I don’t plan to abandon this fic, I also might take a much longer time to update in the future, I hope you guys understand.
> 
> Happy Reading!
> 
> Edit 1/8/21: This chapter and previous chapters have been edited, nothing has changed plot wise although some chapters/scenes are more heavily edited than others.

“Your dress is pretty,” Renjun told him. “Very Fire Nation.”

 _Gold with the Blue embroidering,_ he never really intended to wear it, but he hadn’t intended to wear a lot of things. The first few days in the Earth Kingdom he had worn the Water Tribe colored dresses that Yuna had conjured up out of seemingly nowhere, but he knew it couldn’t have been with the attention to detail of the dresses and the styling that was so clearly not Water Tribe. He had only intended to wear the blue gowns, but Mark had told them they were going to an important meeting and Yuna had thought it was a good idea to wear something that represented his “two” nations. He didn’t think it was the best idea, but he was waiting for Mark to come back from who knows where to approve his outfit. 

He had expected Mark to not let him out of his sight, but he supposed the next best thing was having Johnny not let him out of his sight. He did his best to ignore Johnny, but it was more difficult with him then his previous guards, Johnny knew too much about him and he felt weird having him listen to his very limited conversation, with very limited people. The only time he wasn’t in the room was when Mark was with him and in the mornings before he got ready and when Yuna helped him get dressed.

“I think that was Yuna’s intentions,” he said quietly. She had left right after finishing his hair, she had ran off to shop according to her and he didn’t speculate beyond that. 

“Hmmm,” Renjun hummed and sat down in the armchair in front of him. It wasn’t exactly proper etiquette for Renjun to sit with him like they were equals and if anybody besides Johnny had been in the room, he was sure they would have commented. They had done it before, but the silent disapproval was always evident, he had stopped caring a long time ago. “Are we never going to talk about the ball?”

“We’re in the Earth Kingdom,” he warned. The walls had ears, even in the Fire Nation and he could only imagine what saying the wrong thing would do in the Earth Kingdom. The worst things always seemed to come back to bite.

“Have it your way then, Your Highness,” Renjun said and his tone was bitter, subtly so, but it was there. 

“Renjun,” he pleaded. “Don’t.”

“Whatever it is, I hope you at least told the Fire Lord,” Renjun persisted.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” he responded, he really didn’t want to snap at Renjun, he really didn’t, but Renjun didn’t want to leave the subject alone.

“You don’t, I am neither your mate nor your monarch, but I am your friend and I would have hoped that you would at least trust me,” Renjun said and it had the intended effect. He knew Renjun was trying to guilt him into telling him the truth, revealing his secrets, but it wouldn’t work. He never intended for anyone to know and now Johnny did, and the more people that knew, the bigger the chance that Mark would find out.

He stayed quiet and Renjun sighed.

\---

The arguments had been going on for what felt like hours and he had long since lost track of what they were even arguing about, power probably. Wealthy people always wanted to fight about power. 

It seemed like they had toned it down now, their voices were no longer raised, but he wasn’t particularly keen on listening to boring politics. Before when they had been in the Fire Nation, he would listen because often times Mark would ask for his opinion on matters discussed in meetings and before Yukhei would ask him to fill him in on Water Tribe politics that had been in the works since they last saw each other, but he wasn’t exactly doing much talking nowadays.

“Donghyuck,” Mark said, an uncharacteristic softness in the olders voice and it snapped him out of his thoughts. He tried to look like he hadn’t been too out of it, but he was sure he wasn’t exactly achieving that level of nonchalance. “General Seulgi asked you how you have liked the Earth Kingdom so far.”

It was a simple enough question, low risk. He could answer honestly because admitting a city was nice wasn’t a political error. Someone like General Seulgi would never try to engage him in a conversation by opening it with a politically charged question because it would give him an excuse not to have to answer. Instead they waited.

“It's very beautiful here, it’s definitely a change of scenery, albeit a bit unexpectedly chilly here.” He smiled at her and she looked amused by his answer.

“You’re from the Water Tribe I’m sure it's much colder there,” Captain Jihyo commented.

“You’re right, I guess I didn’t realize how accustomed I’ve gotten to the warmth of the Fire Nation,” he replied. He wasn’t even sure if he remembered what it felt like to truly be cold anymore, what it felt like to need his furs sometimes even inside of a building. It was something he hadn’t thought about, he hadn’t realized that the warmth in the Fire Nation only affected him on bad days and not as often as it used to.

“Do you miss it?” Seulgi asked and he almost froze, but he knew better than to show how exactly a question affected him. It was a loaded question, a smart question, because it was casual enough for him to have to answer and his answer would hold weight. He couldn’t say no because it would look like Mark was attempting to erase his culture and Mark hadn’t. He couldn’t say yes, it would seem like he was in the Fire Nation unwillingly and that would only strengthen the Earth Kingdoms claims.

“I think anyone would,” he said slowly, making sure his voice didn’t waiver. “It’s all I had ever known, but I’m glad that I had the opportunity to see what was outside those walls, it can be a bit boring to see the same thing everyday. Change can be good.”

“But it can also be bad,” Yuqi, a distant cousin of Yukhei said. He had met her on a few occasions, she had tagged along on a few of the Earth Kings trips to the North Pole. She was a nice beta and he could have seen himself becoming friends with her if he had moved to the Earth Kingdom. Despite being related to Yukhei, she was only royal by name. She didn’t have any claim to the throne being a nonbender, but nonetheless was well loved by most of the citizens and she was often invited to important things for that reason.

“That can be true, but I do like the Fire Nation as well,” he commented and she frowned. He knew what it must look like to her, like he had never had any feelings for Yukhei and while that was true, he had never had to deal with the consequences of his lack of loyalty to Yukhei and looking at her made him feel guilt burn in his gut and shame wash over him.

“While this conversation was nice, let’s stop beating around the bush. I think we should talk about the real reason why we’re all here, the Earth Prince,” Jihyo interjected and he just knew Mark looked irritated again, but he didn’t dare look, instead he kept his eyes trained on her. “There is no reason for him to be in prison, in a Fire Nation prison nonetheless, he hadn’t done anything wrong.”

“What is your alternative then?” a Fire Nation advisor asked and she smiled like they had just taken her bait and he was sure sure they had.

“You said you wanted to find an appropriate leader for our nation, right?” Jihyo asked and there were a few nods in affirmation. Her eyes shifted to him and her stare unsettled him. “I think a lot of the citizens would agree that the Earth Prince should be the one to lead us.”

“Which citizens are you talking about? All of them or just the rich? Because it was to my understanding that the citizens in the Lower Ring weren’t too fond of the late Earth King, I’m sure that can be said of some of the villages outside of the wall as well,” Mark commented.

“While that may be true, I didn’t say that you should fully reinstate the Earth Prince right now. You want to rebuild, bring peace to our nations, you and Prince Yukhei can work together, together we can be at peace with each other,” she said, voice full of hope.

“No,” Mark stated simply and silence followed his remark.

“No?” Seulgi asked when nobody else did. “You won’t even consider it?”

“I want to rebuild, then we can speak about the Earth Prince,” Mark's words unwavering.

“You will be seen as conquerors,” Seulgi was in obvious disbelief, but so was everyone else. Sure they hadn’t exactly expected Mark to agree but they hadn’t expected him to outright say no either.

“We are already seen as conquerors,” Mark sighed. “If I reinstate your Prince, I would be leaving him with an extremely difficult task and even if I were to help him, I can’t stay in the Earth Kingdom. We are thousands of miles apart, to even send a message to him would take days. I can’t afford that and neither can you.”

“That’s the only thing we are truly asking, you taking away our ruler, our government, is wrong. What's the difference between your monarchy and ours? Why do you have a right to the throne and Yukhei doesn’t,” Jihyo asked and it was borderline disrespectful to ask such a question.

“The difference is, I can be removed from my position if I am deemed inadequate, the Earth King can only be removed if they die,” Mark replied.

“For someone else to remove you, they must hold the royal blood, right? Power must stay in the Royal Family, it cannot lay outside of it, I don’t see much of a difference,” Yuqi commented and various signs of agreements could be seen and it clearly wasn’t what Mark had intended when he had made the previous statement.

“The Royal Consort knew Prince Yukhei, I’m sure he can give his opinion,” Seulgi prompted and his heartbeat quickened as everyone in the room blatantly looked at him. 

“I hardly think that is appropriate, I am not a diplomat or a politician, I don’t think I can give a political opinion,” he said, hoping his voice didn’t sound shaky.

“Maybe not, but I’m sure you can still judge his character, right? Because that's what's truly being questioned, if the Earth Prince would make a good leader?” He knew he had to look like a fish out of water, like he didn’t know if he should even answer and his eyes gravitated towards Mark. Mark could prohibit him from responding, but they both knew that would only make it look like Mark was controlling him and it was exactly what they were trying to avoid.

Nonetheless Mark gave him a subtle nod and it took him a moment to gather his thoughts. Would Yukhei make a great leader? He didn’t truly know, he had previously had his reservation about him, but at the end of the day they were only ever opinions. He had only really known Yukhei throughout his childhood and adolescence, back then the answer would be no, but at the same time, he had never really seen Yukhei be serious. It wasn’t exactly fair to judge Yukhei based on his opinions on the older when Yukhei was a child without any true responsibilities.

“The Earth Prince, I think had a lot of growing to do, I don’t think he would exactly be ready for his kind of position, mostly because I don’t think anyone expects their father to die when you still need them. I don’t think he could lead a nation by himself, but at the same time, no nation is run by just one person. The Earth Prince would obviously need an adjustment period, but only time can tell if he’d truly be a good leader,” he said, attempting to please both sides. The weight of all of their eyes felt like too much.

“Will you at least consider it?” Yuqi's question now directed at Mark and he finally felt like he could breath now that the attention was no longer on him. “You’ve never met my cousin, but he’s not a bad person, I’m sure your Royal Consort can attest to that as well.”

“I will,” Mark affirmed, but he was sure that Mark wouldn’t.

\---

They stayed in the Earth Kingdom for two and a half weeks and seemingly nothing was accomplished. The journey back to the Fire Nation was just as dreadful as it had been the other way around, although now, he was sure Mark was mad at him.

“You evaded my questions in the Earth Kingdom, what's going to be your excuse now that we’re in the Fire Nation,” Renjun asked. 

Now that they were back in the Fire Nation he had expected Johnny to be back to watching over Mark, but Mark had ordered Johnny to follow him around and now the older was watching them from the entrance of the garden. He didn’t exactly mind, before he hadn’t exactly had a fixed guard, it used to just change depending on the day, which had honestly made him feel uncomfortable, but now he felt more at ease with Johnny being around, he wasn’t sure if was the guard himself or the fact that he didn’t have to feel uncomfortable with the constant change.

“I don’t have an excuse,” he said, stopping in front of a bench along the wall of bushes. He sat down and he motioned for Renjun to follow. He wanted to tell Renjun, but the right words were hard to find and it felt like it had happened such a long time ago, that now it felt like it was irrelevant. He had newer issues now that Mark was quite obviously displeased with what he had said in the meeting in the Earth Kingdom. While he did know why Mark was displeased, it didn’t make sense, if he would have answered any other way, it would have seemed biased.

He had never thought Yukhei would make the best leader, but Kings had advisors for a reason and it didn’t make them a bad leader. If Mark didn’t want him to speak, he shouldn’t have brought him because Mark knew it was a possibility that he could have been asked a question that he couldn’t avoid if he didn’t want things to get worse between the two nations.

“I’d just rather not talk about it,” he exhaled and Renjun let out a sigh as well.

“Is it that bad that you don’t even want to talk about it?” Renjun said skeptually. The answer was a simple yes, but he knew it wouldn’t be that simple.

“Depends who you ask,” he answered vaguely.

He knew he would have to tell Renjun something, Renjun would ask and ask until he told him something and he simply wasn’t willing to tell him right now. It would feel too real and he knew it would make all the suppressed emotions come out and he really didn't need that right now. 

“Mark and I mated,” he said after remembering that Renjun didn’t know. It had completely slipped his mind after they had to cut their trip short and return to the palace. “It's part of it.”

“Shouldn’t that be a good thing?” Renjun asked. “Didn’t you want to bite him?”

“It would have been a good thing if his father hadn’t literally died that same night.” They had both pushed it to the back of their minds after they had read the message delivered the following morning. It hadn’t felt important in the grand scheme of things.

“That… sucks,” Renjun offered and he scoffed. He should have known that Renjun wouldn’t say anything useful. 

“You pressured me into telling you and that's all you have to offer?” He said and he made sure to make his annoyance heard.

“I don’t exactly have experience in the love department, Jaemin is the only guy that has seriously courted me, the only guy I’ve liked that isn’t royalty and unobtainable,” They looked at eachother and the pain in Renjuns eyes left too much of an impact. “But it had to mean something right? For him to let you bite him back? They don’t do that here, especially not someone of his blood.”

“It did back then, not so much now.” A bite felt so trivial, like something that shouldn’t mean much, especially when he had believed that he and Yukhei would bite each other for most of his life and it would hold no significance. It felt trivial but his problems all stemmed from the significance of it. It made him wonder if he hadn’t fallen in love if things would be different.

“It hasn’t been _that_ long, give him time,” Renjun tried to reassure.

“How much time is enough time? I’m tired Injun, I’m tired of feeling unwanted, of feeling like I can’t even talk in front of him let alone to him, because I feel like everything I do nowadays upsets him. It's such a contrast to how things were before that I don’t even feel like I’m mated to the same person anymore,” he looked up and Johnny was looking at them and he wondered if he had become so desperate that some random alpha brought him more comfort than his own mate. “I was okay with never being in love with my mate before and now all I want is my mate's love and I just feel like I can’t keep doing this anymore.”

“Talk to him,” Renjun suggested and his hands itched to strangle the older. It wasn’t that simple, Mark didn’t leave room for him to talk and if he tried Mark had always shut him down. 

“Didn’t you hear the part where I said I can’t even speak to him,” he shot back and Renjun chuckled and although he knew Renjun wasn’t exactly laughing at him, it irritated him nonetheless.

“I did, but what I’m saying is, speak to him, voice your concerns, if he doesn’t care, if he ignores you, then you know its a lost cause,” Renjun tried to state logically, but it wouldn’t be that easy, he couldn’t make his feelings go away because he saw no hope, if anything it would make him feel worse.

“It's not like it will change anything I’m still mated to him,” he said after thinking about it.

“Maybe, maybe not, it's up to you to decide,” Renjun suggested and felt like he was exactly where he had started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys liked the chapter. Just to let you guys know, either the next chapter, or the one after is going to be the end of the first arc (I haven’t decided), so make of that what you will. I’m probably going to separate them into different fics, so don’t get surprised if the fic suddenly had a fixed ‘end’ chapter, I promise it's not the end. If yall hate the idea of separate fics, let me know, lol, although I already picked a name for the next part so keep that in mind.
> 
> In recent news I made a curious cat, I wasn't sure if anyone was even interested, but I figured why not. I didn't even know you had to have a twitter to make an account so I had to make a whole twitter to make the curious cat. If the curious cat is successful I might actually use the twitter. You should see the link if I did it properly
> 
> As always thank you for reading, if you liked it please consider leaving a comment or kudos!


	14. Echoes of Silence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello guys!
> 
> There is a trigger warning in this chapter, which is also a spoiler, so if you don't need the trigger warning, maybe come back to this authors note once you're done. The trigger warning is for domestic violence, which I have decided to also add to the tags as well as rearrange the tags for the final time. The reason I hadn't before was because before I started writing this chapter I hadn't decided what exactly was going to happen in this chapter.
> 
> That being said, this is the last chapter of this arc, I have added this to a series, so if you want to wait for the next part, that is one way to keep informed, so subscribe, bookmark or neither. The name of the series is subject to change, I kind of forgot I needed a name for the series, so I had to think of one in a hurry.
> 
> Anyway, Happy Reading!
> 
> Edit 1/8/21: This chapter and previous chapters have been edited, nothing has changed plot wise although some chapters/scenes are more heavily edited than others.

“You asked me to see me?” He asked when he settled a safe enough distance from the flames surrounding his mate. Mark was sitting on the throne and the image was a lot to take in.

For all the time he had been in the palace he realized he had never been in the throne room, it wasn’t a place his father-in-law was too much of a fan of and Mark didn’t tend to use it often either and perhaps this was the first time Mark even had because he had never been summoned to it.

There were alot of firsts because the image of the flames surrounding Mark made him realize he had never actually seen Mark firebend, because if he had he would have realized that Marks fire was blue and not the typical varying shades of orange and red. If he had seen Mark firebend, he wouldn’t have been shocked by the blue flames surrounding the throne and the way they grew and shrunk in sync with Mark’s breathing. 

Shock wasn’t even what he would describe it, because he had heard about it, had seen Yeri’s yellow, almost white flames, but he had never thought to think about Mark’s firebending. It was a testament to just how little he knew about Mark, how little they truly knew about each other.

“I’m assigning you a new guard,” Mark said over the cracking of the flames. The new assignment was to be expected, Johnny was afterall Mark’s guard and not his, but nonetheless the change was making him a bit nervous.

“Who?” He asked and Mark breathed in a way that seemed to almost play with the fire surrounding himself and it was as fascinating as it was unsettling.

“Chan,” Mark replied and he let out a sharp breath. Chan was the son of Admiral Bang and much like his relationship with Chan's father, they had never gotten along too well. Chan would make snarky remarks about him and while he hadn’t exactly raised his concerns to Mark, he also would have hoped Mark realized how uncomfortable Chan made him.

“Can it be someone else? I would feel much better if it wasn’t him,” he tried to convey all his emotions into his words and into their bond, because he _needed_ Mark to understand how he felt, because he _hoped_ Mark would understand.

“Chan is one of the best fighters we have and I trust him,” Mark replied bluntly and he tried not to let his frustration out.

“Minhyung please,” he pleaded instead and Mark cocked his head in an almost mocking way.

“That’s not my name, Donghyuck,” Mark said and some part of him that he had believed to have grown numb, now hurt, ached in a way that he had hoped would never be associated with Minhyung, but it was. “He’s starting tomorrow and Johnny will be with you until then.”

“Can’t it be Johnny, I feel much more comfortable with Johnny,” he confessed and Minhyung scrunched up his face and he knew it was the wrong thing to say, but everything was the wrong thing to say, he was better off just keeping quiet, but he was sure if that would have been the case, Minhyung would have been found offense in that as well.

“Perhaps you are, but Johnny was only supposed to be temporary. He already has an assignment,” Mark replied. He grew quiet and Mark just stared at him, like he was waiting for him to say something.

“Is that all?” He asked quietly, almost inaudible over the crackling of the flames. 

“No,” Mark replied and the sharpness of the word caused him to grow rigid and Mark smiled unkindly at him. “Your opinion on the Earth Prince, what is it?”

“I don’t have an opinion, whatever you decide is good,” he said cautiously, he didn’t know what the answer that Mark was looking for was. Mark asked, so it had to mean Mark wanted an opinion, but he had already given an opinion, one that Mark hadn’t liked and he couldn’t offer much more than that.

“Hmm,” Mark hummed and the flames seemed to grow closer to him and he flinched at the warmth of them and he inadvertently took a half a step back. “Well that’s funny because you sure seemed to have an opinion on him when we were in the Earth Kingdom.”

“You know that's not fair, Fire Lord,” he said and his whole body seemed to shake as Mark let out his anger, Mark’s emotions filtering through their bond for the first time in weeks. And although Mark's feelings flooding through had been something he experienced before, it was different now, it didn’t feel like emotions trickling in for the sake of sharing them with your mate, it felt calculated, like Mark was using them against him, like a weapon.

“Can you stop that?” he asked, his voice sounding pathetic. It made him realize that Mark was doing it on purpose because if Mark hadn’t realized the exact effect his actions were having, Mark would have stopped immediately, but the pain seemed to only get worse and Mark’s gaze didn’t waiver

“Isn’t this what you wanted? To know how I was feeling? To let you in?” Mark said with a smirk and he felt his knees grow weak and his knees hit the ground painfully, but it was nothing compared to the way Mark’s anger and pain wrapped around his heart.

It was hard to breath, he felt suffocated and he wasn’t even sure if it was his own panic setting in or if it had to do with Mark, but it didn’t really matter, because his lungs hurt the same and he gasped for breath the same.

He managed to shut the bond long enough to regain his strength and he scrambled to his feet and tried to leave, to get away from Mark, from Minhyung, because as much as he wanted to cherish Minhyung, Minhyung was Mark and Minhyung was gone.

He managed to get a few feet away before he felt a hand grip his wrist and burn into his skin and he let out a cry and he staggered backwards, nearly falling down again but Mark pulled him up harshly and this time he did scream at the pain in his shoulder.

"You're hurting me," he whimpered out and Mark's grip only seemed to grow tighter and increasingly painful by the second.

He put his hand over Mark’s and tried to get Mark to let go, but Mark was stronger, alot stronger and he failed and the only thing he could do now was try to endure, to wait for Mark to let go, once the older figured that enough was enough. 

And just like the sudden start of the burning sensation, it stopped and Mark’s grip on him slightly loosened and he blinked once before he realized that now would be his change to run.

“How’d you do that?” Mark asked, a hint of confusion in Mark’s voice and although he was also confused as to what Mark was even asking, he used the moment to break free from the olders hold and he ran, even after he heard Mark calling after him. 

\---

He almost ran into Johnny as soon as crossed the threshold and the doors slammed shut behind him.

“Your Highness, you’re hurt!” Johnny said when the older noticed that he was clutching his arm to his chest and the material that had once covered his wrist was scorched. He ignored the statement and instead rushed in the direction of his bedroom, he didn’t know what he was going to do. All he knew was that he needed to get away from Mark, he just couldn’t do this anymore.“You need medical attention!”

He ignored Johnny and instead he kept heading towards his room. He never thought that it would come to this, he never thought that he would actually seriously consider running away, but he couldn’t see himself staying, he couldn’t see himself sleeping next to Mark like nothing had happened, he couldn’t even think about Mark without reliving the past 10 minutes of his life. All he knew was that he couldn’t stay.

“Your Highness slow down,” Johnny said, speed walking behind him. Johnny hadn’t caught up to him because he didn’t want to, out of courtesy to him, but he didn’t need courtesy. He wanted to be left alone, he didn’t want to talk or to heal, he just wanted space.

“Johnny just leave me alone,” he said harshly as he turned to face Johnny directly and briefly came to a halt.

“I’m not going to leave you alone until you tell me where you’re going,” Johnny tone left no room to argue, so he didn’t.

“To my room,” he lied and from the look on Johnny’s face, Johnny knew it too, but he didn’t feel guilty instead he felt irritated that the older wasn’t letting him be.

“You and I are past secrets with each other,” Johnny said and it was true, but the truth was that he didn’t want Johnny to know, he didn’t want to talk about this, he didn’t think he ever would, but it was a sentiment that he had more often than not these days. “Where are you going?”

“To my room,” he repeated and he had the urge to huff, but Johnny wouldn’t take him seriously if he did that, so he stood firm and Johnny just nodded at him.

“I believe you are, but where are you going after?” Johnny asked again. 

“Nowhere,” he said, a bit of guilt laced in his voice this time, because Johnny seemed to actually care and now it was starting to actually make him feel bad.

“If you’re not going to tell me, at least let me look at your arm,” Johnny said and it was enough to confuse him.

“What?” he said, a bit shocked at Johnny's order and Johnny used his shock to gently grab his arm instead. Johnny looked at his wrist and assessed the damage.

“I don’t think I can heal you completely, but this should help,” Johnny said. Johnny removed his grip from his arm and instead moved it down to hold his hand, but he didn’t have enough time to be confused or question the action because what he felt next was extreme pain, worse then the feeling of Mark burning him and he would have yelled if he still had it in him and the only thing that came out of him was a silent scream. 

He instead tried to use his other arm to get Johnny to let go, but Johnny didn’t budge and instead kept his grip on his hand. 

“That hurts,” he managed to croak out and Johnny's eyes widened and Johnny let go immediately and he leaned against the wall to steady himself.

“It’s not supposed to hurt,” Johnny said weakly, his eyes wide, like he was afraid of his reactions. “I’m so sorry, it was supposed to help heal you.”

“I- It doesn’t hurt as much now,” he said once the effects of whatever Johnny had tried to do to him passed, his arm felt a lot better, but some of the pain was still there, but the burning sensation had subsided significantly. “Thank you for whatever that was.”

“Don’t mention it,” Johnny said and they stared at each other.

“I’m leaving,” he confessed as he slid down the wall to sit on the ground and Johnny followed suit.

“Where are you going?” Johnny asked again, he doubted Johnny would try to stop him, if Johnny had wanted to stop him, he would haven’t have attempted to heal him in an empty corridor instead of taking him to see a medic. If Johnny wanted to stop him he wouldn’t have chased him down the halls of the palace, but Johnny had and he was grateful for it.

“I don’t know, anywhere, I can’t… be here right now,” he confessed and Johnny hummed in response.

“Have you thought it through? How are you even going to get out of here?” Johnny asked genuinely and he stayed quiet because he really hadn’t but it wasn’t like had been planning for any of this to happen. “It's not like you can just walk out of the palaces heavily guarded gates, you wouldn’t even be able to get out of the palaces front doors without someone noticing.”

“Well what do you suggest I do? Wait around for _him_ to take his anger out on me again? Because I can’t and I won’t,” he said, suddenly feeling defensive.

“Your Highness, that’s not what I meant, but unless you have a plan you won’t make it,” Johnny offered and although it should have burst his bubble, his mind was already up, he was leaving or he was going to die trying.

“Then what do you suggest I do?” He asked and Johnny stayed quiet with a pensive expression.

“The air nomads brought bison with them, they wanted to start a herd here in the Fire Nation,” Johnny said. “I supposed you can take one of them.”

“Don’t you have to bond with a bison? What’s the likelihood that’ll happen?” He asked and he tried not to feel the beginning of dread in the pit of his stomach, because if he let it, he would begin to rethink his hasty decision and he didn’t know if he could even live with the alternative.

“Your Highness, you’re not an ordinary person, you’ve been marked by the moon spirit herself, if anyone will bond with one of them, it’ll be you,” Johnny said with so much certainty that it confused him.

And although he was skeptical of Johnny's words, although he didn’t believe that being marked by the moon spirit meant anything in this particular situation, he tried to have some faith and he nodded.

“Where are they?” he asked, suddenly feeling anxious because what if this didn’t work? What if he couldn’t bond with one of the bison? He could try to take Nessie, but there was no guarantee that she would even go with him and even if she did, there was no guarantee that she would stay with him, she was afterall Mark’s dragon and not his. 

"I'll take you to them only if I go with you to wherever you're going," Johnny offered and he shook his head.

“No,” he said, without even thinking about it because it wasn’t something he even wanted to consider. “I can’t ask that of you, this is your home and you might never be welcomed back.”

“Trust me when I tell you that I’ve been waiting for this my whole life,” Johnny offered.

“That can’t be true,” he said weakly and Johnny smiled at him and the smile wasn’t tense or fake, it was natural.

“You aren’t the only one with a purpose in life, Your Highness,” Johnny said vaguely and he scrunched up his face in confusion. “I was born to be the protector of a Prince, and until recently I thought that Prince was the Fire Lord, but I realized that I was meant to be his Consort protector, and not the Fire Lord’s.”

“You can’t mean that,” he said weakly.

“Your Highness, we can talk about this another time, but you need me and while you might not believe me, I won’t regret this,” Johnny told him and he took a second to think it over, because while he was fine throwing his life away, he couldn’t easily throw Johnny’s too, he might be eventually welcomed back into the Fire Nation, maybe even one of the other nations, Johnny would have a harder time, but Johnny had offered and maybe it was their destiny.

“Okay,” he replied quietly.

“Pack light and meet me in the stables in 20 minutes,” Johnny got up and and so did he and he winced as he put weight on his wrist. “If you need to say your farewell to anyone, now would be a good time.”

And they both knew who the other was thinking of.

\--

It took longer than he had hoped to find Renjun and when he did find him, clear alarm bells went off as Renjun spotted the state of his arm but before Renjun could comment, he started talking.

"Renjun I need you to listen to me and listen to me only, I'll explain everything later." Renjun gave him a nod and he sighed before continuing. "I'm leaving.

“I would like to say that I’ll be back, but I can’t say that with certainty. We’ve been together our whole lives and while I would like for you to be with me on this new journey, I also know that you've found someone you could someday love and I would never want to take that away from you. But you’ve always had the choice and if you want to come with me on this new adventure, that door is open, it always will be, but think carefully before you make a decision. I'm leaving in 15 minutes, with or without you, just know I won't be mad at whatever you decide." 

Renjun nodded slowly before pulling him into a hug and he melted into the olders touch, it had been so long since they had hugged that it almost felt foreign, but as much as it felt foreign, it felt familiar.

“I love you, Donghyuck,” Renjun said softly and he felt tears well up in his eyes. He chuckled at the sincerity in Renjuns voice and he tried to commit the moment to memory, because he didn’t know when he would see Renjun again, if he would see Renjun.

"I love you too, Renjun," he replied, reciprocating Renjuns sincerity. And he allowed himself to stay in Renjuns embrace for a bit longer before he pulled away and faced the older.

The look in Renjuns eyes told him the older had already made his decision and it felt weird to walk away from the one thing that he thought would always be a constant in his life.

\---

When he had heard Johnny say herd, he had expected there to be at least twenty bison, but instead there were only seven and it made him feel more skeptical than he already had, but Johnny didn’t look bothered by the number. But Johnny had probably known the number before he even suggested the idea, so of course Johnny wasn’t bothered.

"How do you know if you have a connection?" He asked Johnny and the olders shrug wasn’t too reassuring and it started to ferment doubt in his mind. 

Was he being too rash? Should he just wait it out and hope for the best moving forward? 

No, he couldn’t. Because he had hoped for the best and he had only ended up disappointed in the end. 

"The monks said it was spiritual, you'll feel a pull towards one and that'll be the one, so far it hasn’t really worked with anyone else," Johnny said and it didn’t really help to boost his confidence. “But we’re not really all too spiritual here in the Fire Nation.”

He wasn’t too spiritual either, but he bit his tongue. He looked at the bison, and he tried to feel something towards one of them. At first nothing happened and he wanted to curse his luck but then a medium sized bison approached them curiously, and he felt oddly drawn to it and he wondered if this was that a connection felt like.

He felt his feet carry him towards the bison and he felt like he was in a trance as he reached out his hand and petted the bison's forehead, in the middle of their arrowhead and the bison leaned into the touch. It was a bit different then touching Nayeon’s bison, with hers he hadn’t felt comfortable, too rigid in front of the huge animal, but with this bison, he didn’t feel scared and it surprised even himself.

"I've never seen that," they heard a voice say. He and Johnny whipped their heads around to see a small teenager walking towards him and if his air nomad tattoos weren’t visible, the boy's orange clothing would have given him away, the boy's head wasn’t shaved, but somehow it suited him. "She's my bison."

He and Johnny shared a look. "What is it that you've never seen?" Johnny asked, sounding a bit rude, but the boy didn’t seem to hold it against them.

"My apologies, I forget nobody besides air nomads really knows that much about bison." The boy began to pet the bison's head and she leaned into the touch the same way she had leaded into his own. "She connected to you." 

He was still confused and it must have shown because the boy continued, "Bison only have one human companion, usually an air nomad, not always but for the most part, but she's connected to us both, I don’t think any of the monks had ever documented anything like this."

If what the boy said was true, then it did seem like something astonishing. The boy had to mean something to him for them to share the connection with the same bison although he didn’t have any idea of what this kind of connection could even mean.

"Look dude, we're trying to leave and we're taking the bison, so either you come or you don't." Johnny kept looking around and although he too felt the anxiety that Johnny was outwardly expressing, he didn’t want to just take the boys bison, even if the bison was his too. They would just have to find another way if the boy didn’t want to come with them.

"Ooo, an adventure, where to?" The boy asked, excitement evident in his demeanor and the boy excitement reminded him so much of Nayeon’s that he figured it was a quality of the Air Nomads. 

Neither he nor Johnny answered and once the boy realized they weren’t going to answer he introduced himself, "I'm Jisung, by the way." 

The boy held out his hand and they both briefly took it. Jisung was a bit strange, but Air Nomads were generally harmless, so he didn’t feel worried yet, it couldn’t be too crazy to believe that running into Jisung was destiny, right?

"I'm Johnny and he's the Fi- Donghyuck," Johnny introduced him and Jisung only looked amused at Johnny’s words and gave them a knowing smile.

"The Fire Lord's Omega, I know, everyone knows your hair is white." The boy spun through the air until he landed on the bison's neck. He and Johnny exchanged a look. He tried to keep calm, but it was hard because if the boy knew who he was then it would mean alot of people would know too and it wasn’t exactly the most ideal circumstance. "Come on, didn't you say we were leaving."

Johnny threw their bags onto the staddle of the bison before helped him climb on, by practically carrying him and while in normal circumstances he would have felt self conscious, now he only felt grateful for the help, because he knew he probably wouldn’t have been able to do it alone with the state of his arm.

"Donghyuck, do the honors," Jisung turned towards him expectantly. He appreciated Jisung not stating his title. It was beginning to settle in that once they left, it was unlikely he would ever be able to go back to being the Fire Lord Consort, he doubted Mark would even accept him back.

"What do I do?" He asked Jisung and Jisung chuckled.

"Normally I would have asked you to fly her, but it doesn’t seem like the best idea,” Jisung replied and he was grateful that Jisung didn’t elaborate. “Just say Yip twice and she’ll fly.”

He tested it in his head a few times before saying it loud, albeit sounding unsure, and he felt disappointed when nothing happened and Jisung just smiled at him.

“You have to say it loudly so she can hear you,” Jisung encouraged and he nodded and took in a shaky breath.

“Yip-Yip,” he said it louder this time and with more certainty and the next thing he knew they were in the air, but this time it didn’t feel as bad as the previous two times. And somehow he was certain it was because of the bond he shared with the animal. “What’s her name?”

“Yisa,” Jisung offered and they all fell quite as they flew outside of the edge of the crater. He glanced at Johnny and although Johnny had wanted to come, the way Johnny was looking at the Palace made him want to comfort the older, but he didn’t, because he wasn’t sure if Johnny would appreciate it, especially when he was the reason they were leaving in the first place.

“You should really do something about your hair,” Jisung said once the capital was no longer insight and the realization that there was no turning back now, had finally settled in completely, but instead of feeling dreary and anxious of the unknown he felt lighter.

“Yeah I probably should,” he replied and he smiled as the coolness of the air ran past him and he felt free for the first time in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've made it this far, thank you so much!
> 
> The direction of this chapter may or may not have surprised you and while I know some of you might not exactly be happy with Mark (or me), it is the direction that I decided to take. While I could explain Donghyuck's decision, I won't, at least not in this authors note because I don't really know exactly what people even want to hear. 
> 
> In case you were curious, I came up with idea of Johnny's healing abilities from an episode of LOK, where a shaman used firebending to read the energy of a character, I don't know if the shaman could heal with fire, it kind seemed like a possibility, but I do know some cultures use Fire for healing, so I decided to introduce the ability in this chapter.
> 
> Remember how I said, I was going to do some editing, like two chapters ago? Well I haven't done it yet, but I've decided I'll do it before I start the new arc. I will likely not post the first chapter of the new arc until next year, although anything is possible, I gotta do some brainstorming/planning before I post anything. 
> 
> Thank you guys for sticking around for this long, if you're a new reader thank you for joining, if you liked it, please consider leaving a comment or a kudos and I hope to see you in the next part!

**Author's Note:**

> [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/poramarte)   
> 


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